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Geometrically Patterned Female Figure
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
Artists of the Chupícuaro culture, based to the north of modern-day Mexico City, may be best known for hollow ceramic figurines like this one. Always female and often apparently pregnant, such figurines commonly are painted with stepped geometric motifs in vibrant, highly burnished slips (creamy mixtures of water and crushed minerals). The meanings of the motifs and the figurines themselves are poorly understood.
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionCredit lineGeometrically Patterned Female Figure, 400–100 BCE. Mesoamerica, Guanajuato or Michoacán, Chupícuaro. Ceramic, slip; overall: 15.6 x 8 x 5.7 cm (6 1/8 x 3 1/8 x 2 1/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. James C. Gruener, 1990.155
