The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 21, 2025

Pedestal Bowl

c. 900–1519

Mexico, Cholula?, Mixteca-Puebla Style, 10th-16th century

earthenware with colored slips
Diameter: 14.4 x 18.6 cm (5 11/16 x 7 5/16 in.); Overall: 14.6 cm (5 3/4 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 1951.317
Location: 233 Mesoamerican and Intermediate Region

Description

The nobility may have used these goblets for a chocolate beverage or for pulque, made from the fermented sap of the maguey cactus. Both are painted with the precision and brilliant colors for which the Mixteca-Puebla style is renowned, and they carry some of the same motifs, such as the band of stylized animal heads at the top. The smaller bowl has a rattle base.
  • "Illustrations." Liturgical Arts 23, no. 3 (May 1955): 101-120. Reproduced: p. 103
    Cleveland Museum of Art, and Jenifer Neils. The World of Ceramics: Masterpieces from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Museum in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1982. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 76-77, no. 82
    Kubler, George. The Art and Architecture of Ancient America: The Mexican, Maya, and Andean Peoples. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1984. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 184-185, fig. 139
    Fields, Virginia M., John M. D. Pohl, Victoria Lyall, Alejandro de Ávila Blomberg, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Dallas Museum of Art. Children of the Plumed Serpent: The Legacy of Quetzalcoatl in Ancient Mexico. Los Angeles, CA, London, U.K., New York, NY: Los Angeles County Museum of Art ; in association with Scala Publishers ; Distributed outside the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in the Book trade by Antique Collectors’ Club, 2012. Mentioned: p. 228, no. 108
  • Children of the Plumed Serpent: The Legacy of Quetzalcoatl in Ancient Mexico. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (organizer) (April 1-July 1, 2012).
    Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA (4/1/2012 - 7/1/2012): 'Children of the Plumed Serpent: The Legacy of Quetzalcoatl in Ancient Mexico"
    Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art; June 29-September 5, 1982. "The World of Ceramics: Masterpieces from The Cleveland Museum of Art," exh. cat. no. 82, repr. in black and white, p. 76.
    The World of Ceramics: Masterpieces from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 20-August 22, 1982).
  • {{cite web|title=Pedestal Bowl|url=false|author=|year=c. 900–1519|access-date=21 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1951.317