On view
Seated man,
ca. 200 BCE
More Context
Didactics
The naturalistic and sensitive treatment of this seated male exemplifies the Remojadas ceramic style. The figure hunches slightly, the resultant concave torso exaggerating his somewhat paunchy belly. A glistening specular hematite slip coats the entire figure with the exception of his scalp. The bare clay of the scalp and the open slits at the top and sides of the head reveal that the ceramic form was once embellished with a wig, likely of human hair. The figure's black pupils, which enliven the face, were added after firing. Tar pitch, known as chapopote, often appears on the faces of ceramic figures produced in the petroleum-rich state of Veracruz. The front teeth are filed into a T-shape, a common feature of Remojadas figurines and a frequent form of aesthetic bodily modification throughout Mesoamerica. The now vacant holes in the ears probably once held ornaments of another material such as shell or greenstone.
Information
ca. 200 BCE
North America, Mexico, Veracruz, Gulf Coast
By 1966, Gillett G. Griffin (1928-2016), Princeton, NJ [1]; 1982, gift to the Princeton University Art Museum.
Notes:
[1] Griffin lent the work to the museum in 1966 (L.1966.194).
- "Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1982", Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 42, no. 1 (1983): p. 50-70., pp. 69–70 (illus.)
- Allen Rosenbaum and Francis F. Jones, Selections from The Art Museum, Princeton University, (Princeton, NJ: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1986), p. 121 (illus.)
- Harmer Johnson, ed. Guide to the Arts of the Americas (New York: Rizzoli, 1992), p. 124 (illus.)
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007)
