Pair of Maya Blackware Lidded Bowls

Fine Arts of Ancient Lands, New York

Emile Deletaille, Brussels, acquired from the above in 1973

Andre Blieck, Brussels, acquired from the above in the 1980s

Lin and Emile Deletaille, acquired from the above in 2019

Thence by descent

Brussels, BRAFA Art Fair, January 27 - February 4, 2018

Maya vessels were important objects for ritual feasting ceremonies and evolved during the Early Classic Period into elaborate painted and modeled objects of pedestal and basal-flange form. 

“Feasting and gift-giving were integral to Mesoamerian social and political events, including heir designation and accession ceremonies, war victory celebrations, marriages and religious observances. Kings established and maintained personal and political relationships by providing generous quantities of fine food and drink [...] thus openly conveying power and success.”¹

Lidded vessels often portray birds to represent the three levels of their world and the accompanying mythology associated with the watery underworld, the surface middle world and the celestial sphere. 

These large bowls show an elegant simplicity of form. Each features the proud head of a bird as a handle with a distinctly textured head, well-modeled brows and curled feathers at the corners. The slightly smaller vessel may represent the female avian. The larger vessel has a low, raised disc from which the head emerges. The base of each vessel is decorated on four sides with three raised roundels in a triangular pattern, perhaps serving as water symbols.

For examples of Early Classic lidded vessels with bird-headed lids, see the pedestal vase from the Jay C. Leff collection, illustrated in Elizabeth K. Easby, Ancient Art from Latin America from the Collection of Jay C. Leff, New York, 1966, p. 103, cat. no. 456; see also Virginia M. Fields and Dorie Reents-Budet, Lords of Creation: The Origins of Sacred Maya Kingship, Los Angeles, 2005, op. cit., p. 217, fig. 112.

¹ Virginia M. Fields and Dorie Reents-Budet, Lords of Creation: The Origins of Sacred Maya Kingship, Los Angeles, 2005, p. 205.