Figurine fragment
400 BCE - 100 BCE
Unknown Artist (Mesoamerican)
Notes
The early female figurine traditions of highland Mexico comprise myriad styles, many sharing characteristics as well as with innovations reflecting local practices. The extensive corpus also changed through time although older features often were retained in later examples. These factors make difficult a certain geographic and temporal attribution of the isolated figurine fragment. This female figurine shares characteristics of Middle Formative period figurines from the Valley of Mexico (especially Type B) and Late Pre-Classic figurines from Guanajuato and Michoacán (in West Mexico). The features of this example are more similar to those of figurines from Guanajuato and Michoacán. See 1951.2.10 for a similar figurine.
See Bell, Betty, 1971, “Archaeology of Nayarit, Jalisco, and Colima. In Handbook of Middle American Indians, Vol. II, Part 2. University of Texas Press, Austin, pp. 694-753; Taube, Karl, 1988, The Albers Collection of Pre-Columbian Art. Hudson Hills Press, New York.