On view
Art of the Ancient Americas
Seated figurine,
1400–1000 BCE
Olmec style
Early Formative Period
y1986-1
Small figurines from central Mexico sometimes display distinctive Olmec traits such as thin eyes framed by puffy lids and thick, downturned mouths, revealing exceptional attention to the human form. Some figures are ungendered and shown in complex poses; often they have exaggerated features, such as the rotund torso of the seated figure displayed here. Other figurines have traits associated with men or women, such as the standing woman with breasts and broad hips. The meaning and function of this distinctive set of Olmec-influenced figurines remain a mystery, although they may, like the so-called Olmec babies, allude to ancestral souls.
Information
Title
Seated figurine
Dates
1400–1000 BCE
Medium
Ceramic with yellow-cream slip and traces of red and black paint
Dimensions
5.6 × 4.7 × 4.1 cm (2 3/16 × 1 7/8 × 1 5/8 in.)
Credit Line
Museum purchase
Object Number
y1986-1
Place Made
North America, Mexico, Puebla, Las Bocas
Culture
Subject
1986, Fine Arts of Ancient Lands, Inc. (Spencer Throckmorton), New York, sold to Princeton University Art Museum.
- Allen Rosenbaum and Francis F. Jones, Selections from The Art Museum, Princeton University, (Princeton, NJ: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1986), p. 29 (illus.)
- "Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1986," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 46, no. 1 (1987): p. 18–52, p. 49
- Harmer Johnson, ed. Guide to the Arts of the Americas (New York: Rizzoli, 1992), p. 55 (illus.)
