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Incense burner top
Maya
Early Classic period
350–500 AD
Object Place: Tiquisate, Guatemala, Pacific Slope
Medium/Technique
Earthenware: traces of red and yellow post-fire paint
Dimensions
43.5 x 43.3 x 28 cm (17 1/8 x 17 1/16 x 11 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Landon T. Clay
Accession Number1988.1229a
CollectionsAmericas
ClassificationsCeramics – Pottery – Earthenware
Elaborate incense burners may have served as oracle vessels through which the spirit realm was contacted. This burner-produced by Maya artists influenced by Teotihuacan culture-was modeled in the form of a temple. A figure, perhaps a religious specialist, is adorned with divination mirrors and stands at the temple's entrance, with attendants holding incense bags. Burning coals and incense were placed in the base, the smoke rising through a chimney at the back and emerging from the temple's roof.
DescriptionTeotihuacan-style effigy incense burner with figure, likely an oracular priest/priestess, rendered inside a temple with roof comb of geometric motifs. Butterflies, stars, floral motifs, and feathered disks (likely divination mirrors) decorate the building. This type of incense burner is typical of the Tiquisate region of Guatemala's Pacific Coast, made in imitation of the Teotihuacan-style incense burners of highland Mexico.
ProvenanceBetween about 1974 and 1981, probably purchased in Guatemala by John B. Fulling (b. 1924 – d. 2005), The Art Collectors of November, Inc., Pompano Beach, FL; May 20, 1987, sold by John B. Fulling to Landon T. Clay, Boston; 1988, year-end gift of Landon Clay to the MFA. (Accession Date: January 25, 1989)
NOTE: This is one in a group of Maya artifacts (MFA accession nos. 1988.1169 – 1988.1299) known as the “November Collection” after John Fulling’s company, the Art Collectors of November, Inc. John Fulling sold this group of objects to MFA donor Landon Clay in 1987, and they were given to the Museum the following year.
Evidence suggests that John Fulling built the November Collection from sources in Guatemala between 1974 and 1981. Only a portion of what he acquired during this time came to the MFA in 1988. It is not possible to determine precisely which objects were acquired when or from whom.
NOTE: This is one in a group of Maya artifacts (MFA accession nos. 1988.1169 – 1988.1299) known as the “November Collection” after John Fulling’s company, the Art Collectors of November, Inc. John Fulling sold this group of objects to MFA donor Landon Clay in 1987, and they were given to the Museum the following year.
Evidence suggests that John Fulling built the November Collection from sources in Guatemala between 1974 and 1981. Only a portion of what he acquired during this time came to the MFA in 1988. It is not possible to determine precisely which objects were acquired when or from whom.