Female Figure with a Child

Maker: Unknown

A.D. 600–900

Art of the Ancient Americas

This small clay figurine depicts an elegantly dressed female, seated cross-legged and holding a baby in the crook of her right arm. Her close-fitting garment covers her left breast but leaves the right exposed for the child to suckle. She wears copious jewelry—two bracelets, a necklace, and large earrings—and a highly elaborate headdress. The figure may represent the moon goddess, who was also worshipped by the Maya as a patroness of fertility and childbirth. The figurine was most likely a grave offering, perhaps for a woman who had died in childbirth. The hollow clay object could also function as a whistle, and a few notes may have been blown at the funeral before the figurine was placed in the grave.

Medium

Ceramic with pigment

Dimensions

7 × 3 1/8 × 2 3/8 in. (17.8 × 8 × 6 cm)

Credit Line

Gift of the Olsen Foundation

Accession Number

1958.15.10

Geography
Period

Late Classic Period

Classification
Disclaimer

Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Provenance

Provenance

Stable Gallery, New York, February 28, 1956 Alfred Stendahl Gallery, Los Angeles, March 1, 1957; Fred H. Olsen (1891–1986), and Florence Quittenton Olsen, Guilford, Conn.; gift in 1958 to Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn.
Bibliography
  • Susan B. Matheson, Art for Yale: A History of the Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 2001), 166–67, fig. 164
  • Elise K. Kenney, ed., Handbook of the Collections: Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1992), 319, ill.
  • George A. Kubler, ed., Pre-Columbian Art of Mexico and Central America (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1986), 138, 295, no. 304, fig. 150
  • Michael D. Coe, "Three Maya Figurines from Jaina Island," Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin 35, no. 2 (Spring 1975), 24, ill.
  • "New Acquisitions Issue," Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin 24, no. 1 (April 1958), 22, 25, fig. 10
Object copyright
Additional information

Object/Work type

human figures (visual works), mythology, whistles

Technical metadata and APIs

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