Masked Male Figure with Dance Staff700–900 CE

Not on view

Ceramic sculpture of a standing figure in worn cornflower blue paint, covered with small attached figures, disk shapes, and hand forms across the body

Ceramic standing figure with articulated limbs, painted in turquoise blue with unpainted clay joints and feet. The figure wears an elaborate fan-shaped blue headdress, a wide collar, and circular disk ornaments at the chest and hip. Multiple jointed arms and legs suggest a poseable construction. Paint is worn and flaking throughout.

Title: Masked Male Figure with Dance Staff
Culture: Maya
Place Made: Mexico, Campeche, Jaina Island
Date Made: 700–900 CE
Medium: Ceramic with post-fire applied pigment
Dimensions: a) Figure: 7 1/4 x 4 1/2 x 2 3/4 in. (18.42 x 11.43 x 6.99 cm); b) Headdress: 1 3/4 x 2 3/4 x 7/8 in. (4.45 x 6.99 x 2.22 cm); c) Staff: 7 x 2 x 1 3/8 in. (17.78 x 5.08 x 3.49 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of John Gilbert Bourne
Accession Number: M.76.157a-d
Classification: Ceramics
Collecting Area: Art of the Ancient Americas
Curatorial Notes: This ceramic figurine, wearing an elaborate costume with a detachable feathered mask, holds a staff where two birds perch. Similar staffs appear in Classic Maya depictions of ceremonial dances that commemorate important occasions, such as a ruler’s accession to the throne. Dance fosters social bonds within Maya communities both past and present, allowing participants to assume the guise of ancestors, deities, and other figures in order to re-create and reenact legendary events.

The blue paint that decorates the figurine’s costume and staff may be the famed Maya blue pigment. Maya blue is obtained through a technically sophisticated process of dyeing palygorskite, a white clay, with indigo, and it was prized among Classic Maya artists and by society at large. The pigment confers preciousness on the items it adorns.

Alyce de Carteret

2024
Selected Bibliography: Berjonneau, Gérald, and Jean-Louis Sonnery. Rediscovered Masterpieces of Mesoamerica: Mexico-Guatemala-Honduras. Boulogne: Editions Arts, 1985.
Magaloni, Diana, Davide Domenici, and Alyce de Carteret. We Live in Painting: the Nature of Color in Mesoamerican Art. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2024.

Masked Male Figure with Dance Staff700–900 CE

Not on view

Title: Masked Male Figure with Dance Staff
Culture: Maya
Place Made: Mexico, Campeche, Jaina Island
Date Made: 700–900 CE
Medium: Ceramic with post-fire applied pigment
Dimensions: a) Figure: 7 1/4 x 4 1/2 x 2 3/4 in. (18.42 x 11.43 x 6.99 cm); b) Headdress: 1 3/4 x 2 3/4 x 7/8 in. (4.45 x 6.99 x 2.22 cm); c) Staff: 7 x 2 x 1 3/8 in. (17.78 x 5.08 x 3.49 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of John Gilbert Bourne
Accession Number: M.76.157a-d
Classification: Ceramics
Collecting Area: Art of the Ancient Americas
Curatorial Notes: This ceramic figurine, wearing an elaborate costume with a detachable feathered mask, holds a staff where two birds perch. Similar staffs appear in Classic Maya depictions of ceremonial dances that commemorate important occasions, such as a ruler’s accession to the throne. Dance fosters social bonds within Maya communities both past and present, allowing participants to assume the guise of ancestors, deities, and other figures in order to re-create and reenact legendary events.

The blue paint that decorates the figurine’s costume and staff may be the famed Maya blue pigment. Maya blue is obtained through a technically sophisticated process of dyeing palygorskite, a white clay, with indigo, and it was prized among Classic Maya artists and by society at large. The pigment confers preciousness on the items it adorns.

Alyce de Carteret

2024
Selected Bibliography: Berjonneau, Gérald, and Jean-Louis Sonnery. Rediscovered Masterpieces of Mesoamerica: Mexico-Guatemala-Honduras. Boulogne: Editions Arts, 1985.
Magaloni, Diana, Davide Domenici, and Alyce de Carteret. We Live in Painting: the Nature of Color in Mesoamerican Art. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2024.