Standing Female Figure (c. 1000–1500): Art, History and Details

Standing Female Figure (c. 1000–1500) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The female depicted in this sculpture wears a serpent-maw headdress—the female’s head appears within the jaws of the serpent, whose eyes can be seen on the “fan” of stone around the head. Many elite Mesoamerican people of the period are shown wearing similar headdresses, suggesting that such sculptures represent noble women. In the past, they have been interpreted as supernatural beings.

Object facts

• Title: Standing Female Figure
• Date: c. 1000–1500
• Culture: Mexico, Gulf Coast, Huastec
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: stone
• Dimensions: Overall: 70 x 33 x 22.5 cm (27 9/16 x 13 x 8 7/8 in.)
• Collection: AA - Mesoamerica
• Department: Art of the Americas
• Accession number: 1990.169

A detail from the museum

The position of the figure’s hands on her belly may suggest motherhood.

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.