Eagle Relief 10th–13th century Toltec This exquisitely carved stone panel, one of a pair given to the museum by the Hudson River School painter Frederic Church in 1893, depicts an eagle biting into a cactus fruit, a symbolic representation of the sun devouring a human heart. The two panels are nearly identical in size and imagery and may originally have formed part of a larger composition on the façade of a temple or other sacred building (see MMA ). The Eagle Panels are among the finest examples of Mesoamerican stone relief sculpture, highly sophisticated in both composition and techni

Eagle Relief 10th–13th century Toltec This exquisitely carved stone panel, one of a pair given to the museum by the Hudson River School painter Frederic Church in 1893, depicts an eagle biting into a cactus fruit, a symbolic representation of the sun devouring a human heart. The two panels are nearly identical in size and imagery and may originally have formed part of a larger composition on the façade of a temple or other sacred building (see MMA ). The Eagle Panels are among the finest examples of Mesoamerican stone relief sculpture, highly sophisticated in both composition and technique. In each, the curve of the bird’s back, from its head through its tail feathers, forms an arc that determines the entire composition and nearly fills the frame. The artist has placed glyph-like scrolls, shells, pierced circles (chalchihuitl), and what appears to be a bundle of reeds or a stylized ear of maize in the remaining spaces. The panel has suffered some damage. A large section on the top left corner is missing, as well as most of the narrow, raised band framing the image. Traces of paint remain on the background and inner carved surfaces, and intervening layers of plaster were discovered during conservation, indicating that the panels had been repainted multiple times, a testament to their importance. The sculptor employed a highly refined carving technique to create a multi-leveled composition, and to maximize the effect of light and shadow. Each row of feathers, from the eagle’s tail through its neck, is rendered in a slightly higher level of relief, and each of the primary (flight) feathers is cut at an angle, so that they appear to overlap, suggesting even greater depth. The outer edges of the scrolls similarly bevel back, creating deep he purchased the panels, Frederick Church, an early trustee of the museum, was told that they had been found by a farmer plowing his field in northern Veracruz, near the city of Tampico, a region dominated by

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