SPECIAL ADVISORY: The Yale University Art Gallery is free and open to the public from Tuesday through Sunday. Masks and COVID-19 vaccination (including booster, if eligible) are required.Review our Visitor Policies
Art of the Ancient Americas
Photo credit: Yale University Art Gallery
Explore image in Maker: Unknown
Female Captive
A.D. 600–900
Ceramic with pigment
22.8 × 8.3 × 7.1 cm (9 × 3 1/4 × 2 13/16 in.)
Gift of the Olsen Foundation
1958.15.9
Complete nudity is rare in Maya art. Adorned only with a necklace and bracelets, this muscular young woman may be either a noble captive who has been stripped of clothes and headdress or one of the maidens who serve the Maize God.
Geography:
Mexico
Status:
On view
Culture:
Mexico, probably Campeche, Jaina Island, Maya
Period:
Late Classic Period
Classification:
Sculpture
Provenance:
Possibly Stable Gallery, New York, February 17, 1956 or possibly Alfred Stendahl Gallery, Los Angeles, March 1, 1957; Fred H. Olsen (1891–1986), and Florence Quittenton Olsen, Guilford, Conn.; gift in 1958 to Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn.
Bibliography:
Mary E. Miller et al., Fiery Pool: The Maya and the Mythic Sea, eds. Daniel Finamore and Stephen D. Houston, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Peabody Essex Museum, 2010), 58, no. 11, ill.
Susan B. Matheson, Art for Yale: A History of the Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 2001), 166, fig. 163.
George A. Kubler, ed., Pre-Columbian Art of Mexico and Central America (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1986), 136–37, 298, no. 302, fig. 153.
Handbook of the Collections, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1992), 318, ill.
Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of such records is ongoing.
