Seated Female Figure200 BCE–500 CE

Not on view

Title: Seated Female Figure
Culture: Nayarit
Place Made: Mexico, Nayarit
Date Made: 200 BCE–500 CE
Medium: Burnished ceramic with slip and paint
Dimensions: 9 x 7 1/2 x 4 1/4 in. (22.86 x 19.05 x 10.8 cm)
Credit Line: The Proctor Stafford Collection, purchased with funds provided by Mr. and Mrs. Allan C. Balch
Accession Number: M.86.296.4
Classification: Ceramics
Collecting Area: Art of the Ancient Americas
Curatorial Notes: This ceramic sculpture from Nayarit portrays a woman with a matte white paint applied to her face; her pallor and closed eyes suggest that she may be dead. As described in the sixteenth-century Florentine Codex, the spirits of women who died in childbirth, known as Cihuapipiltin in Nahuatl, have faces whitened by chalk. The figure may represent an analogous personage in West Mexican society, the white paint evoking her connection to both life and death.

Diana Magaloni and Alyce de Carteret

2024
Selected Bibliography: Kan, Michael, Meighan, Clement, Nicholson, H.B. and Rexford Stead. Sculpture of Ancient West Mexico: Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1970.
Von Winning, Hasso, and Alfred Stendahl. Pre-Columbian Art of Mexico and Central America. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1968.
Magaloni, Diana, Davide Domenici, and Alyce de Carteret. We Live in Painting: the Nature of Color in Mesoamerican Art. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2024.

Related Unframed

Not on view

Title: Seated Female Figure
Culture: Nayarit
Place Made: Mexico, Nayarit
Date Made: 200 BCE–500 CE
Medium: Burnished ceramic with slip and paint
Dimensions: 9 x 7 1/2 x 4 1/4 in. (22.86 x 19.05 x 10.8 cm)
Credit Line: The Proctor Stafford Collection, purchased with funds provided by Mr. and Mrs. Allan C. Balch
Accession Number: M.86.296.4
Classification: Ceramics
Collecting Area: Art of the Ancient Americas
Curatorial Notes: This ceramic sculpture from Nayarit portrays a woman with a matte white paint applied to her face; her pallor and closed eyes suggest that she may be dead. As described in the sixteenth-century Florentine Codex, the spirits of women who died in childbirth, known as Cihuapipiltin in Nahuatl, have faces whitened by chalk. The figure may represent an analogous personage in West Mexican society, the white paint evoking her connection to both life and death.

Diana Magaloni and Alyce de Carteret

2024
Selected Bibliography: Kan, Michael, Meighan, Clement, Nicholson, H.B. and Rexford Stead. Sculpture of Ancient West Mexico: Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1970.
Von Winning, Hasso, and Alfred Stendahl. Pre-Columbian Art of Mexico and Central America. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1968.
Magaloni, Diana, Davide Domenici, and Alyce de Carteret. We Live in Painting: the Nature of Color in Mesoamerican Art. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2024.