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Collections

Frog in Cave-Shaped Vessel300–600 CE

Not on view
Unglazed ceramic bowl with a scalloped, lobed rim and a low-relief sculpted bird figure resting at the center of the interior
Title
Frog in Cave-Shaped Vessel
Culture
Maya
Place Made
Guatemala
Date Made
300–600 CE
Medium
Engobe-painted earthenware
Dimensions
Diameter: 9 in. (22.86 cm) Height: 3 5/16 in. (8.41 cm)
Credit Line
Purchased with funds provided by Camilla Chandler Frost
Accession Number
M.2010.115.121
Classification
Ceramics
Collecting Area
Art of the Ancient Americas
Curatorial Notes

A frog, modeled in clay, sits at the center of this blackware bowl. The vessel’s cloverlike shape, known as a quatrefoil, symbolizes the entrance to a cave. In the Maya worldview, caves are potent spaces, connected with the watery primordial underworld and the realm of ancestors. Imagine this bowl as a container for liquid: the frog would peer out from this four-lobed pool, re-creating the fivefold shape of the cosmos as its central axis.

Alyce de Carteret

2025

Selected Exhibition History
  • The Ancient Maya World: Masterworks from the Permanent Collection. Saturday, December 1, 2012- Sunday, March 2, 2014

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