Female Seated Figure (100 BCE–300 CE): Art, History and Details

Female Seated Figure (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:

This couple-extremely fine examples of their kind-may commemorate the marriage of an important person, such as a chief, but could also represent siblings of a chiefly family. Whatever their relationship, their unity is conveyed by their physical similarities, including their jewelry, which marks high social station. The female is unusual in nursing an infant, likely a reference to generational renewal and the continuation of noble bloodlines. The significance of the male’s activity-beating a turtle-shell drum- is not understood.

Object facts

• Title: Female Seated Figure
• Date: 100 BCE–300 CE
• Culture: Mexico, Nayarit
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: ceramic
• Dimensions: Average: 52.3 x 30.5 x 29.5 cm (20 9/16 x 12 x 11 5/8 in.)
• Collection: AA - Mesoamerica
• Department: Art of the Americas
• Accession number: 1998.83.1

Collection credit

Gift of Clara Taplin Rankin

Further reading listed by the museum

• Townsend, Richard F., and Patricia Rieff Anawalt. Ancient West Mexico: Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1998.
• Cleveland Museum of Art, “Cleveland Acquires Major New Sculpture, Rare Chinese Prints, Contemporary Prints, Drawings & Photographs,” October 30, 1998, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.

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.