Collected by Teobert Maler in Xupá, Chiapas, Mexico, 1898. [1]

Private collection, Mérida, Mexico, possibly after 1917; [2]

[Sold to John Austen Stokes Jr., Mexico City, 1962]; [3]

Sold to Clarence E. Zimmerman, Brookline, Massachusetts, 1973; [4]

[Jointly consigned to Mark Blackburn, Lancaster, Pennsylvania and Larry Wendt, Santa Fe, New Mexico, by 1992 (unsold)]; [5]

[John Austen Stokes Jr., Upper Nyack, New York, 1997]; [6]

Sold to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1998.

[1] Teobert Maler (1842–1917) was a German explorer who spent much of his career documenting Maya ruins. In his account "Researches in the Central Portion of the Usumacinta Valley," he describes finding the panel at the previously-looted Xupá site in 1898: "I searched the terraces of the pyramid very thoroughly for the missing stones and was fortunate enough to find one of them. This slab was ornamented with the outlines of a lovely female form, having a high and graceful head-dress, a pure Maya profile, a collar of net-work with an edge of beads, and a disk on the middle of the breast... I have made a tracing of this single acquisition of my explorations." Maler asserted that the looting of Xupá likely took place around 1890 and may have taken the panel into his personal collection to prevent further damage by looters (Maler 1903, p. 21).

[2] Correspondence in curatorial file indicates that the panel remained with Maler until his death in 1917. However, inventory of Maler's collection taken during this time was inconsistent and does not confirm that he was in possession of the panel at the time of his death. It is possible that he sold the panel prior to 1917 or that it was removed from his house in Mérida during a two day period between his death and the first inventory of his collection, during which time the house was left unsealed and unguarded (Durán-Merk, Alma and Stephan Merk, "I declare this to be my last will: Teobert Maler's testament and its execution," Indiana 28 (2011), pp. 342-349).

[3] Stokes was living in Mexico City in 1962 (the panel's recorded purchase date), but had returned to the United States by 1966 and exhibited the panel at his Upper Nyack gallery, John Stokes Gallery, by 1970 (correspondence with John Austen Stokes Jr., Roger S. Howard, and Marilyn L. Howard, curatorial file, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco).

[4] Correspondence with Clarence E. Zimmerman, curatorial file, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

[5] The panel was considered for acquisition by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in 1992, but was ultimately unsold and returned to Zimmerman (correspondence with Larry Wendt, curatorial file, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco).

[6] In a 1998 letter, Zimmerman states that the panel "was in my possession from January, 1973, until Mr. John Stokes reacquired it from me last summer, 1997" (curatorial file, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco).

Maler, Teobert, "Researches in the Central Portion of the Usumacinta Valley," Memoirs of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology vol. 2, no. 2 (1903), p. 21, fig. 4.

Mayer, Karl Herbert, "Eine Maya-Inschrift auz Xupá, Chiapas, Mexiko," Archiv für Völkerkunde 35 (1981), p. 3, fig. 1.

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Africa, Oceania, the Americas, and the Jolika Collection of New Guinea Art: Highlights From a Decade of Collecting (San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 2009), p. 62.

Pillsbury, Joanne, Miriam Doutriaux, Reiko Ishihara-Brito, and Alexandre Tokovinine, eds., Ancient Maya Art at Dumbarton Oaks (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2012) p. 47, fig. 24.

Scherer, Andrew K. and Charles Golden, Revisiting Maler's Usumacinta: Recent Archaeological Investigations in Chiapas, Mexico (San Francisco: Precolumbia Mesoweb Press, 2012), p. 38, fig. 34.