Colima Pre-Columbian Seated Maternity Figure

Hunched around a small child, a seated mother holds the bundle close.

This pre-Columbian seated maternity figure is Colima, from West Mexico, Mexico. It is terra cotta. Seated figures of women with children are a recurring theme in the ceramic art of ancient West Mexico, and they are often linked by scholars to ideas of fertility. Brown and mottled, the figure wears a wrapped headdress and has a long face and rounded arms folded around the infant. She sits on a low block with short legs, with pale deposits and small chips on the surface. It is 3 inches wide, 2 deep and 4 high.

Rough-hewn and tender, in about equal parts.