Seated Figure with Vessel

Early artists throughout the region of West Mexico crafted ceramic sculptures of daily life including figural effigies, plants, and animals (2007.345.1). Some of these sculptures may once have included attachable weapons or even implements of feasting that no longer remain, providing insights into the types of social rank and ceremonial practices that were integral to these communities (see MMA: 2007.345.7). This clay sculpture depicts a seated figure with a slender chest and rounded shoulders. It is modeled with a pointed nose, thinly incised eyes, and open mouth, as if captured in the act of speaking. There are perforations on each ear lobe, suggesting that this figure may have once worn ear ornaments. Although rather lithe, it is holding a colossal serving vessel decorated with crosshatch markings and a geometric band of square patterns along the top and bottom.

Large, ceremonial feasts of maize, beans, and seafood would have been a vital part of developing community relations within the region. Depictions of feasting often include the ritualized drinking of pulque, a traditional Mexican alcoholic beverage made from fermented maguey or agave sap. These can be found on several West Mexican ceramic vessels, house models, and scenes illustrating the Mesoamerican ballgame (see MMA 2015.306). Archaeologists have hypothesized that local elites sponsored large feasts and the exchange of precious resources including obsidian, maguey, and spondylus as a negotiation of social, religious, and economic authority over neighboring territories (Butterwick 1998: 104–105).

Colima ceramics are often produced using a local clay of orange and brown hues with applied deep-red paint or slip. This figure would have been modeled by hand, using techniques of coiling and beating of malleable clay to produce its features. The artist would have used a stylus to cut into the surface, revealing the contrasting grey colored clay to accentuate the facial features, hands, and details of the serving vessel. Like many Colima figures, this example is highly burnished, in which clay sculptors carefully rubbed the surface with a smooth stone or other abrasive materials to produce its luminous luster. Figures like this one were part of funerary assemblages placed in shaft tombs, deep burial structures consisting of a series of cavernous tunnels and adjacent chambers for several interred individuals. They were likely multigenerational, with ceramic and other offerings representing vital vignettes to accompany the deceased into the afterlife. This clay figure reflects the vital role of providing nourishment to a large ceremonial gathering in maintaining healthy social and economic relations along the Pacific coast. To render this activity in clay is itself a potent act, a memorialization of these pivotal communal events and a sign of their continuation into the afterlife.

Brandon Agosto, 2026

Further reading:

Beekman, Christopher S., and Robert S. Pickering. Shaft Tombs and Figures in West Mexican Society: A Reassessment. Edited by Christopher S. Beekman, and Robert S. Pickering. Tulsa: Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, 2016.

Butterwick, Kristi. Heritage of Power: Ancient Sculpture From West Mexico: The Andrall E. Pearson Family Collection. New York, New Haven, London: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004.

Butterwick, Kristi. "Food for the Dead: The West Mexican Art of Feasting," In: Ancient West Mexico: Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past, edited by Richard Townsend, pp. 89–105, Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1998.

Hernández Díaz, Verónica. "Muerte y vida en la cultura tumbas de tiro", in Miradas renovadas al Occidente indígena de México, edited by Marie Areti Hers, pp. 79–131. Mexico: Mexico Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, UNAM, 2013.

Meighan, Clement W., and H.B. Nicholson. "The Ceramic Mortuary Offerings of Prehistoric West Mexico: An Archaeological Perspective." In: Sculpture of Ancient West Mexico. Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima. A Catalogue of the Proctor Stafford Collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Revised edition, by Michael Kan, Clement Meighan, and H. B. Nicholson, pp. 29-67. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1989.

Olay Barrientos, María de los Ángeles, and Andrés Saúl Alcántara Salinas. "La tumba de las Fuentes, Colima. Notas sobre los contextos funerarios de las élites hacia el fin de la fase Comala. In Memoria I Foro Colima y su Región Arqueología, Antropología e Historia, edited by Juan Carlos Reyes G., pp. 1-34, Mexico: Secretaría de Cultura, Gobierno, del Estado de Colima.

Pickering Robert B., Cheryl Smallwood-Roberts and Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art. West Mexico. Ritual and Identity. Tulsa, Oklahoma: Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, 2016.

Townsend, Richard, ed. Ancient West Mexico: Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1998.

Zavaleta Lucido, Marcos Trinidad and Rosa María Flores Ramírez. "The shaft tombs of Parcelas 12, 19, and 25 and their inhabitants: Funerary considerations on recent archaeological finds in Colima," in: Shaft Tombs and Figures in West Mexican Society: A Reassessment. Edited by Christopher S. Beekman and Robert S. Pickering, pp. 55–72 Tulsa: Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, 2016.