Pyriform Vase | Yale University Art Gallery

A.D. 900–1200

As the name plumbate implies, vessels such as this look metallic, as if made of lead, but this metal was unknown in the pre-Hispanic world. Plumbate pots turned black and shiny when oxygen was cut off toward the end of firing. After the abandonment of Classic cities, Toltec warriors filled the vacuum of power in Mesoamerica. Wherever they went, they introduced the new technology and shapes of pots seen in this example. The Toltecs established strong cultural contact with the Maya, and most Maya plumbate ceramics appear to have been made in the Guatemalan Highlands, near the border with Mexico.

Medium: Incised ceramic with pigment, Tohil Plumbate
Dimensions: 8 3/8 × 3 1/16 in. (21.3 × 7.7 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of the Olsen Foundation
Accession Number: 1958.86.2
Geography: Mexico, or Guatemala, or Honduras, or El Salvador
Culture: Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, or El Salvador, Maya
Period: Early Postclassic Period
Classification: Containers
Disclaimer: 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 records is ongoing.

Provenance

Fred H. Olsen (1891–1986), and Florence Quittenton Olsen, Guilford, Conn.; gift in 1958 to Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn.

Bibliography

Rosemary A. Joyce, Revealing Ancestral Central America, exh. cat. (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2013), 83, fig. 40, 43

Elise K. Kenney, ed., Handbook of the Collections: Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1992), 319, ill

George A. Kubler, ed., Pre-Columbian Art of Mexico and Central America (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1986), 149, 312, no. 323, fig. 171

Professor George A. Kubler, The Art and Architecture of Ancient America, 2nd ed. (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1975), pl. 131a

Object copyright

No Copyright - United States

Additional information

Object/Work type

utilitarian objects, vases

Technical metadata and APIs

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