Standing Female Figure (600–1000): Art, History and Details

Standing Female Figure (600–1000) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Ancient Veracruz artists used ceramic to create figural sculptures in a range of sizes, styles, and types. This beautiful, finely wrought female figure is an exceptional example. Although her identity is unknown, her adornments signal high status: ear ornaments, a large necklace, an elaborate dress that drapes over her outstretched arms, and perhaps even her front teeth, filed into a T shape, may have symbolic importance. The unfinished back, with a tripod support, suggests that the figure was meant to be seen from the front.

Object facts

• Title: Standing Female Figure
• Date: 600–1000
• Culture: Mesoamerica, Veracruz, Nopiloa style?, 7th-10th century
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: ceramic, pigment
• Dimensions: Overall: 25.2 x 28.4 x 10 cm (9 15/16 x 11 3/16 x 3 15/16 in.)
• Collection: AA - Mesoamerica
• Department: Art of the Americas
• Accession number: 2014.390

A detail from the museum

This lovely female’s body is a flat plaque supported by a tripod at the rear.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Bergh, Susan. “Acquisition Highlights 2014: Pre-Columbian and Native North American Art.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 55, no. 2 (March/April 2015): 12-13.
• Calendar, North America. The Burlington Magazine 157, no. 1343 (February 2015): 139.

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.