Nayarit Lagunillas Pottery Seated Female Figure

Pre-Columbian, West Mexico, Nayarit, Lagunillas type, Protoclassic period, ca. 100 BCE to 250 CE. A hollow-built and highly burnished pottery female figure sitting with bent legs tucked beneath her voluptuous hips and thighs. The woman presents with a stippled yellow-white waistband around her red-painted body, has perky breasts set far apart near her hunched shoulders, and holds both sinuous arms tightly atop her abdomen. Her ovoid head bears protruding, coffee-bean-shaped eyes flanking the ring-adorned nose, perky ears, a peaked brow line, and an incised coiffure surrounding the opening on top. Size: 6.625" W x 9.3" H (16.8 cm x 23.6 cm)

West Mexican shaft tomb figures like this one derive their names from the central architectural feature that we know of from this culture. These people would build generally rectangular vertical shafts down from the ground level down to narrow horizontal tunnels that led to one or more vaulted or rounded burial chambers. The geomorphology in the area means that these chambers are dug out of tepetate, a type of volcanic tuff material, which give the chambers a rough-edged look.

Although the dimensions of the chambers vary considerably - some only large enough to hold a single burial and its offerings, others seem designed to hold entire lineages - the placement of burial goods like this hollow figure was very similar. Grouped with other hollow figures, and alongside clay bowls, and boxes, they were positioned around the body (or bodies), near the skull.

Cf. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession number 2005.91.10

Provenance: private New York, New York, USA collection; ex-John Falcon collection, New York, New York, USA, acquired via inheritance; ex-Richard Gregory collection, (financial analyst for Hearst Magazines), acquired in the 1980s

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#159180
Condition Report: Minor fading to areas of pigment and light encrustations, otherwise intact and near-choice. Great preservation of detailing and pigment throughout. Old inventory label beneath base.