Jump to content tickets Member | Make a donation
- The Collection
- The American Wing Ancient Near Eastern Art Arms and Armor The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing Asian Art The Cloisters The Costume Institute Drawings and Prints Egyptian Art European Paintings European Sculpture and Decorative Arts Greek and Roman Art Islamic Art Robert Lehman Collection The Libraries Medieval Art Musical Instruments Photographs Antonio Ratti Textile Center Modern and Contemporary Art
Crop your artwork:
Scan your QR code:
Gratefully built with ACNLPatternTool
Maya
Not on view
This imposing incense burner depicts a Maya ruler wearing a large, elaborate headdress and jewelry assemblage. The figure sits cross-legged atop a hemispherical dome and holds a group of ritual implements, including a round plaque which may represent a mirror, in front of his chest cascading down in front of his torso. Jade beads, in the form of round appliques that would once have been painted blue-green, decorate the ankles, biceps, nostrils, and shoulders of the figure. The main chamber of the censer below contains a stylized series of sculpted and painted bundle motifs, including crenulated jaguar pelts, a beaded medallion, a knot of rope, and what may be a shark tooth and canine fangs.
The seated figure may be a depiction of an Early Classic (ca. A.D. 250–550) Maya ruler. At least four other incense burner lids of the same type exist, and one contains a hieroglyphic name in the medallion on the front of the headdress. If once present, such a painted name is missing from the circular medallion in the current example. The headdresses of the rulers in the set vary greatly, suggesting a group of different rulers, or perhaps a single ruler impersonating different deities. This ruler’s headdress contains wide spiraled eyes underlined by beaded motifs directly above the forehead of the individual. A wide strap that borders the face and attaches below the chin may be a representation of the jaws of the deity; the ruler’s face thus emerges from the maw of the supernatural. A beaded headband contains two splays of feathers to the left and to the right. The elaborate earflare assemblage, including round flares supported by a perpendicular cylindrical post through each, contains tri-lobed ornaments below and a spiraled element above. The large ear ornaments cross the plane between real and mythical; the viewers see them as simultaneously worn by both the ruler and the deity.
Incense, in the form of tree resins such as copal (Protium copal), was a key component of ancient Maya rituals, as well as in contemporary rituals of Maya descendants. Ritual practitioners and royal families made offerings of burning incense to communicate with ancestors and deities in the supernatural realm. Maya artists depicted fragrant incense smoke in monumental sculpture and paintings; clouds of smoke were vehicles for ancestors to communicate with the living. This incense burner and others like it may depict ancestors of the rulers who burned incense in their chambers, or they may have been used to venerate a ruler after death, with the sacred smoke encouraging his apotheosis.
Published References
Fields, Virginia, and Dorie Reents-Budet. Lords of Creation: The Origins of Sacred Maya Kingship. Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Scala Publishers Limited, 2005. Cat. 64, p. 166.
This artwork is meant to be viewed from right to left. Scroll left to view more.
Artwork Details
Use your arrow keys to navigate the tabs below, and your tab key to choose an item
Title: Censer, Seated King
Date: 4th century
Geography: Guatemala
Culture: Maya
Medium: Ceramic
Dimensions: H. 31 1/2 × W. 12 1/4 × D. 9 in. (80 × 31.1 × 22.9 cm)
Classification: Ceramics-Containers
Credit Line: Gift of Charles and Valerie Diker, 1999
Accession Number: 1999.484.1a, b
Learn more about this artwork
Timeline of Art History
Chronology
Maya Area, 1-500A.D.
Museum Publications
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (Spanish)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (Russian)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (Portuguese)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (Korean)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (Japanese)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (Italian)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (German)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (French)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (Chinese)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide (Arabic)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide
One Met. Many Worlds.
Jewelry: The Body Transformed
Related Artworks
- All Related Artworks
- By Maya
- The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing
- Censers
- Ceramics
- From Guatemala
- From North and Central America
- From A.D. 1–500
Cylindrical Vessel
1st–2nd century
Cylindrical Vessel
1st–2nd century
Tetrapod Bowl
1st–4th century
Tripod Bird Bowl
3rd–4th century
Yoke-Form Vessel
mid-4th–mid-5th century
Resources for Research
The Met's Libraries and Research Centers provide unparalleled resources for research and welcome an international community of students and scholars.
The Met Collection API is where all makers, creators, researchers, and dreamers can connect to the most up-to-date data and public domain images for The Met collection. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.
Feedback
We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments.
The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing at The Met
The Met's collection of art of the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa, the Pacific Islands, and North, Central, and South America comprises more than eleven thousand works of art of varied materials and types, representing diverse cultural traditions from as early as 3000 B.C.E. to the present.