Geometrically Patterned Female Figure

Artists of the Chupícuaro culture, based to the north of modern-day Mexico City, may be best known for hollow ceramic figurines like this one. Always female and often apparently pregnant, such figurines commonly are painted with stepped geometric motifs in vibrant, highly burnished slips (creamy mixtures of water and crushed minerals). The meanings of the motifs and the figurines themselves are poorly understood.