Standing Female Figure

Culture: Classic Veracruz
Period: Late Classic period, 600–909
Date: c.750–900
Material: Ceramic
from: Veracruz state, Mexico, North and Central America
Classification: Ceramics, sculpture
Collection: Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas
Current Location: On View, Gallery 114
Dimensions: 12 3/4 x 8 1/8 x 4 in. (32.4 x 20.6 x 10.2 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of Morton D. May
Rights: Public Domain
Object Number: 307:1978

NOTES

With its grinning face and open stance, this appealing character is but one of hundreds of sonrientes, or smiling figures. Their clothing, headdresses, and jewelry indicate an elite status. Largely mold-made, the meaning of the smiling figures continues to escape precise identification. Some scholars suggest the expression comes from drugs and hallucinogens used to make sacrificial victims more compliant prior to their violent deaths. Others identify these figures as dwarf-like beings known as chaneques, who were thought to occupy a liminal space between this world and the world beyond.

Provenance

- 1969
Original Arts, Denver, CO, USA

1969 - 1978
Morton D. May (1914-1983), St. Louis, MO, purchased from Original Arts [1]

1978 -
Saint Louis Art Museum, given by Morton D. May [2]

Notes:
[1] An invoice dated October 6, 1969 from Original Arts to Morton D. May documents this purchase, listed as "1026 VERACRUZ smiling fig." [May Archives, Saint Louis Art Museum].

[2] A letter dated September 29, 1978 from Morton D. May to James N. Wood, director of the Saint Louis Art Museum, includes the offer of this object as part of a larger donation [SLAM document files]. Minutes of the Acquisitions Committee of the Board of Trustees, Saint Louis Art Museum, December 13, 1978.

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