Cleveland Museum of Art
Seated Male Carrying Maize
- Date
- 1325–1521
- Medium
- stone, pigment
- Culture
- Central Mexico, Aztec style, 13th-16th century
- Department
- Art of the Americas
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 127239
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
This figure probably represents an Aztec deity-either Macuilxochitl or Xochipilli-whose domain was beauty, the arts, and such pleasures as gameplaying, dancing, and sex. Both names include the Aztec word for "flower," and in one hand the figure holds a cone of flowers, perhaps the blossoming crown of a cactus. For the Aztecs, flowers signified beauty, refinement, and fertility in general and sexuality in particular. The burden of maize cobs on his back also may allude to his creative energies. Macuilxochitl is one of five gods of excess pleasure, and the punishment that follows.
The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.
Get printable QR codesHide QR codes
Open QR codes for this object page and the museum record. They stay collapsed until needed.
Provenance & credit
As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.
- Credit line
- The Norweb Collection
- Provenance
- ?-1949: Raymond Henry Norweb [1894-1983] and Emery May Holden Norweb [1895-1984], Cleveland OH, gift to the Cleveland Museum of Art | 1949-: The Cleveland Museum of Art
Related across collections
Semantically similar works from Cleveland Museum of Art and other institutions.