Cleveland Museum of Art
Seated Figure Wearing a Skin
- Date
- 600–1000
- Medium
- earthenware, slip
- Culture
- Mexico, Gulf Coast
- Department
- Art of the Americas
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
This type of image-showing a human clothed in a sacrificial victim’s skin, visible around the mouth and wrists-is one of the most awesome created by Mesoamerican artists. The figure represents the deity Xipe Totec or a human impersonator. Among the later Aztecs, Xipe was associated with fertility, rain, and renewal. Perhaps the wearer, upon shedding the skin, was conceived as a sprout emerging from a withered husk. Xipe also had military connections.
The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.
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