Head from a Building's Façade
Unknown Artist
250–900 CE
Medium
stucco, paint
Dimensions
{"overall":{"height":0.332,"width":0.175,"depth":0.297}}
Classification
Sculpture
Department
Art of the Americas
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. James C. Gruener
Accession Number
1990.183
About this artwork
The Maya often lavishly decorated the exteriors of buildings, transforming them into elaborate sculptural works in their own right. This sensitively modeled head, made from fragile stucco, would have been affixed to the façade of a palace or temple via the tenon (projection) at the back of the head. The rest of the body may have been modeled separately.