Monumental Chinesco Seated female, Lagunillas Type A, Protoclassic, ca. 100 B.C.-A.D. 250

with youthful joy and confidence, the heart-shaped face with narrowed half-moon eyes showing pupils, smiling mouth and high smooth cheekbones, the neatly striated coiffure cropped short in the back, the ears and nose studded with multiple rings, and adorned with numerous concentric painted necklaces above a delicate two-tiered bead collar, the transparent net loincloth extending down her firm thighs and secured with tiny beaded string around the waist, kneeling on thin forelegs folded beneath her.

California private collection

Acquired from the above in mid 1970's

Chicago, Ancient West Mexico, Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past, The Art Institute of Chicago, September 5-November 22, 1998; traveling to

Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, December 20, 1998- March 29, 1999

Baltimore, The Walters Art Museum, 2002-2010

Richard F. Townsend, ed., Ancient West Mexico, Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past, Thames and Hudson, 1998, pg. 123, Fig. 21, Cat. no. 202

The monumental Lagunillas figures from Nayarit are some of the most impressive hollow ceramics conceived in ancient Mexico. This figure ranks amongst the largest of the female genre. Her stylized anatomy and distinctive face give a more individualized depiction of the rite of passage of the pubescent female. The large Lagunillas type also includes seated males of a more somber, pensive style; they may have been intended as mates in the aferlife. 

See Holsbeke and Arnaut (1998: Fig. 95) for a large male figure of the type;  see also Body and Cosmos, Sculptural Art of Pre-Columbian Mexico, catalogue to the exhibition, Caixa Catalunya Foundation, (2004: cat. nos. 34, 35), for figures with similar surface markings.