Among the most celebrated Olmec works in fired clay—the finest are made of ivory-colored kaolin as is this example—are large, masterfully sculpted, hollow, sexless human figures displaying infantile characteristics. Usually seated with splayed legs and hands on thighs, these figures have the posture, body proportions, and fleshiness of human babies. However, they are not merely depictions of human infants: some have the mass and powerful build of an adult, are embellished with symbolic designs on their bodies, and wear distinctive headdresses as seen here. Infants are a frequent theme in Olmec art, although why is unclear.
In the late second millennium B.C., the influence of the Olmec peoples of the Gulf Coast reached into the highlands of central Mexico, where this figure is said to have originated at a site known today as Las Bocas. The figure, of a type often called a "baby figure," was included in an important loan exhibition of Olmec ceramic works that was organized at the Museum of Primitive Art in 1965, <em>The Jaguar's Children: Pre-Classic Central Mexico</em>. The jaguar is the largest feline animal native to the Americas, and certain of its features had a profound effect on the beliefs and imagery of the ancient peoples of the hemisphere.
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Head and torso from right showing the right arm
Artwork Details
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Title:Seated Figure
Date:12th–9th century BCE
Geography:Mexico, Mesoamerica
Culture:Olmec
Medium:Ceramic, pigment
Dimensions:H. 13 3/8 x W. 12 1/2 x D. 5 3/4 in. (34 x 31.8 x 14.6 cm)
Classification:Ceramics-Sculpture
Credit Line:The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Bequest of Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1979
Accession Number:1979.206.1134
[Everett Rassiga, New York, until 1965]; Nelson A. Rockefeller, New York, 1965, on loan to The Museum of Primitive Art, New York, 1965–1978
Museum of Primitive Art. "The Jaguar's Children: Pre-Classic Central Mexico," February 17, 1965–May 9, 1965.
Museum of Primitive Art. "The World of Primitive Art," July 12, 1966–September 11, 1966.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Nelson Rockefeller Vision: In Pursuit of 'The Best' in the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas," October 7, 2013–October 9, 2014.
Covarrubias, Miguel. Indian Art of Mexico and Central America. New York: Knopf, 1957.
Coe, Michael D. and Sophie D. "Pre-classic central Mexico." In The Jaguar's Children. New York: Museum of Primitive Art, 1965, also on cover, no. 16, AR.1999.2.50, MPA archives, exhibition documents.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. Art of Oceania, Africa, and the Americas from the Museum of Primitive Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1969, no. 558.
Newton, Douglas. Masterpieces of Primitive Art: The Nelson A. Rockefeller Collection. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978, p. 164.
Newton, Douglas, Julie Jones, and Kate Ezra. The Pacific Islands, Africa, and the Americas: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987, p. 115, no. 82.
Watts, Edith. The Art of Ancient Mexico and Peru: Teachers' Packet. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1990, p. 15, no. 13.
Benson, Elizabeth P., and Beatriz de la Fuente, eds. Olmec Art of Ancient Mexico. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1996.
Castro-Leal, Marcia. "The Olmec Collections of the National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City." In Olmec Art of Ancient Mexico, edited by Elizabeth P. Benson, and Beatriz de la Fuente. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1996, pp. 139–143.
Coe, Michael D., ed. The Olmec World: Ritual and Rulership. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 1996, p. 137, fig. 1.
Blomster, Jeffrey P. "Context, Cult, and Early Formative Period Public Ritual in the Mixteca Alta: Analysis of a Hollow-Baby Figurine from Etlatongo, Oaxaca." Ancient Mesoamerica vol. 9 (Fall 1998), pp. 309–326.
Clark, John E., and Mary E. Pye, eds. Olmec Art and Archaeology: Social Complexity in the Formative Period. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2000.
Ortiz, Ponciano, and Maria del Carmen Rodriguez. "The Sacred Hill of El Manati: A Preliminary Discussion of the Site's Ritual Paraphernalia." In Olmec Art and Archaeology in Mesoamerica, edited by John E. Clark, and Mary E. Pye. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2000, pp. 75–93.
Blomster, Jeffrey P. "What and Where is Olmec Style? Regional perspectives on hollow figurines in Early Formative Mesoamerica." Ancient Mesoamerica vol. 13 (July 2002), pp. 171–95, fig. 3.
Taube, Karl A. Olmec Art at Dumbarton Oaks. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2004.
Pool, Christopher A. Olmec Archaeology and Early Mesoamerica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Berrin, Kathleen, and Virginia M. Fields, eds. Olmec: Colossal Masterworks of Ancient Mexico. San Francisco: de Young Museum, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 2010.
Tate, Carolyn E. Reconsidering Olmec Visual Culture: The Unborn, Women, and Creation. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2012.
Pillsbury, Joanne. "The Pan-American: Nelson Rockefeller and the Arts of Ancient Latin America." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin Vol. 72 (2014), pp. 18–27, figs. 30, 31.
Assistant Curator James Doyle explores themes woven into the creation and use of ceramic baby figures made by the Olmec civilization in ancient Central Mexico.
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The Met's collection of art of the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa, the Pacific Islands, and North, Central, and South America comprises more than eleven thousand works of art of varied materials and types, representing diverse cultural traditions from as early as 3000 B.C.E. to the present.
