The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of February 2, 2023

Vessel with Butterfly Headdress

1–550

Central Mexico, Teotihuacán, 1-550

Ceramic, stucco, pigment

Diameter: 15.6 x 15.8 cm (6 1/8 x 6 1/4 in.); Overall: 15.5 cm (6 1/8 in.)

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. James C. Gruener 1990.231

Location

233 Mesoamerican and Intermediate Region

Description

The headdress shown on this vessel combines a serpent's mouth with a butterfly's proboscis (feeding tube), which curls between the eyes. The butterfly often appears in the headdress of the Great Goddess, an extremely important Teotihuacán deity. Stucco (paper-thin, painted plaster) is fragile and usually does not survive well; the stucco of the basin in this case has been repaired.

Provenance
?-1965
(Stendahl Art Galleries, Los Angeles, CA, 1965, sold to James C. and Florence C. Gruener)
1965-1990
James C. [1903-1990] and Florence C. [1908-1982] Gruener, Cleveland, OH, bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art
1990
The Cleveland Museum of Art
Citations
Von Winning, Hasso, and Alfred Stendahl. Pre-Columbian Art of Mexico and Central America: Text and Notes by Hasso Von Winning. Selection of Plates by Alfred Stendahl. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1968. p. 177, fig. 211
Young-Sánchez, Margaret. "The Gruener Collection of Pre-Columbian Art." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 79, no. 7 (1992): 234-75. Reproduced and Mentioned: p. 251 www.jstor.org
Conides, Cynthia. “Figures in Action: Contextualizing the Butterfly Personage at Teotihuacan, Mexico.” In Visual Culture of the Ancient Americas: Contemporary Perspectives. Andrew Finegold and Ellen Hoobler, 103-133. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2017. 82, 105
Conides, Cynthia. Made to Order: Painted Ceramics of Ancient Teotihuacan. Norman : University of Oklahoma Press, 2018. Reproduced: cover, pp. 50, 74, plate 16, fig. 319a; mentioned: pp. 73, 115, 163, 195
Exhibition history

Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art; February 4 - November 29, 1992. "The Gruener Collection of Pre-Columbian Art." The Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art. 79 (September, 1992.) cat. no. 57, p. 270, repr. fig. 57, p. 251.

The Gruener Collection of Pre-Columbian Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 4-November 29, 1992).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1990.231