Maya. <em>Maize God Emerging from a Flower</em>, 600-900. Ceramic, pigment, 8 1/4 x 2 1/8 x 1 11/16 in. (21 x 5.4 x 4.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Dick S. Ramsay Fund, 70.31. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 70.31_overall_PS11.jpg)

Maize God Emerging from a Flower

Artist:Maya

Medium: Ceramic, pigment

Geograhical Locations:

Dates:600-900

Dimensions: 8 1/4 x 2 1/8 x 1 11/16 in. (21 x 5.4 x 4.3 cm)

Collections:

Exhibitions:

Accession Number: 70.31

Image: 70.31_overall_PS11.jpg,

Catalogue Description:
The delicately modeled ceramic figurine is Jaina in style and reveals the upper part of a figure emerging from a flower. The figure is red with ornaments (necklace, earrings, and headdress) in cream color. The tip of the headdress is blue. There are other trace amounts of blue on the stem and petals of the flower. The figure's arms are folded across the waist. The flower, possibly a water lily has three pointed petals: one is in the front-center section, turned downward, exposing the inside texture of the flower that is handled with an application of clay dots; a second stands upward in the back, enveloping the figure; and a third stands upward on the proper left side of the lily. Because the water lily is associated with the Underworld in Maya cosmology, this figurine may symbolize the renewal of life after death. Condition; good; there are two repaired breaks in the stem and two repaired breaks in the headdress. There are also two broken edges at the proper right side of the blue central portion of the headdress, probably where two appliquéd segments had been attached.

Brooklyn Museum