Emaciated Crouching Figure (c. 100 BCE–300 CE): Art, History and Details

Emaciated Crouching Figure (c. 100 BCE–300 CE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The protruding ribs and staring eyes of this melancholy figure may show the effects of a ritual fast, rather than famine. Fasting purified an individual in preparation for religious rites and may have enhanced the search for supernatural visions.

Object facts

• Title: Emaciated Crouching Figure
• Date: c. 100 BCE–300 CE
• Culture: Mexico, Nayarit, San Sebastian Red Style
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: earthenware with burnished red slip
• Dimensions: Overall: 14 x 8.9 x 8.9 cm (5 1/2 x 3 1/2 x 3 1/2 in.)
• Collection: AA - Mesoamerica
• Department: Art of the Americas
• Accession number: 1990.261

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. James C. Gruener

Further reading listed by the museum

• Young-Sánchez, Margaret. "The Gruener Collection of Pre-Columbian Art." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 79, no. 7 (1992): 234-75.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.