Mexica Feathered Serpent Pendant, 1325-1521 - Porcelain Art Mug

The pendant keeps the shape of a cross-section through a conch shell, and into that shape a feathered serpent has been incised: the head at the centre seen from above, two drilled eyes on either side of the feathered snout, the body coiled around the empty middle, the rattlesnake tail curled on the reverse. Two human hands emerge from the coils. One holds a flower that Leonardo López Luján identified as the huacalxóchitl, the Nahuatl name for Philodendron affine, a plant the Mexica associated with sensuality and pleasure; the other may hold a knife.

An ornament of this type is an ehecacozcatl, a wind jewel, worn by Quetzalcoatl-Ehecatl, the creator and god of wind. The material carries meanings of its own: shell belonged to warriors, and above all to water and fertility. Layer upon layer, in something that measures barely five centimetres across.

Shell was worked in ateliers that stood, in all likelihood, inside the royal palaces, and Adrián Velázquez Castro has argued that the finished ornaments were reserved for the private ceremonies of the Mexica elite. An object like this one speaks of control over everything that was scarce at once: a raw material carried from far away, and access to the few hands able to turn it into this.

The mug carries the pendant at full height against a neutral ground, the carving read as it is read in the case, with the light raking across the incised feathers.

Fine porcelain, 10 oz — 104 mm high, 75 mm across the base. The image runs around the body; handle and rim stay white. Dishwasher and microwave safe.

Feathered serpent pendant, Mexica (Aztec), Mexico, 1325–1521 CE, shell, H. 4.1 × W. 4.8 × D. 0.6 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of the Mol Collection, 2020, accession number 2020.386.1. The museum publishes the image as Open Access for unrestricted commercial and non-commercial use.

Selected by Dr. Walther Fuchs for the Tazzarte collection.