Description
In the afterlife, it was the role of deceased noble ancestors to communicate with the deified forces of nature on behalf of their people. Presented as offerings at ancestral shrines, mold-made figures of this kind were sometimes reshaped while the clay was still moist to give them more individualized facial features.
Provenance
Jay C. Leff, Uniontown, PA, by 1959 [Carnegie Institution, exh. cat., 1959; on loan to Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1981–1988]; sold, Sotheby’s, New York, lot 208, Nov. 21, 1988, to Claudia Giangola and John Menser, Ancient Art of the New World, New York [Invoice, Jan. 17, 1989, and incoming permanent receipt RX17525, Dec. 2, 1988, copy in curatorial object file]; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1989.
Accession Number
110317
Medium
Ceramic
Dimensions
H.: 35.6 cm (14 in.)
Classification
earthenware
Credit Line
Harold L. Stuart Fund