On view
Art of the Ancient Americas
Seated female,
100 BCE–200 CE
Ixtlán del Río style
Formative Period
y1977-92
The original context from which these figures were disinterred is unknown. Their similarities in size, color, and decoration, however, suggest that they were found together and were made as a pair. The male displays an intricately decorated textile slung over the left side of his chest, an indication of high rank. A musician, he strikes a turtle carapace with a deer antler. The female wears a fine skirt and has scarified shoulders. Such male-female pairs in tombs have been interpreted as marital couples, although the relationship of this pair to the person or persons with whom they were interred remains difficult to know. Are they portraits of lineage founders? Are they portraits of living descendants of the interred, perpetually present to care for their ancestors? Might they allude to a moment in the biography of the deceased?
Information
Title
Seated female
Dates
100 BCE–200 CE
Medium
Red clay with polychrome slip-paint
Dimensions
42.5 × 22.8 × 23.3 cm (16 3/4 × 9 × 9 3/16 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Gillett G. Griffin
Object Number
y1977-92
Place Made
North America, Mexico, Nayarit, West Mexico
Period
Type
Materials
Subject
By 1974, Gillett G. Griffin (1928-2016), Princeton, NJ [1]; 1977, gift of Gillett G. Griffin, to the Princeton University Art Museum.
Notes:
[1] Griffin lent this object, along with its pair y1977-91, to the Museum in 1974 (L.1974.67).
- "Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1977," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 37, no. 1 (1978): p. 28-40., p. 32
- John H. Burkhalter III and Gillett G. Griffin, Music from the Land of the Jaguar (Princeton: Princeton University Art Museum, 2004)., fig. 6
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 141 (illus.)
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), pg. 308
