Mexican Ceramic "Nagual" Figure, Signed by J. Medrano

J. Medrano, possibly Juan Jose Ramos Medrano (Mexico, Jalisco, Santa Cruz de las Huertas, active XX century). "Nagual" pottery sculpture, n.d. Signed "M" on basket on proper left side and "JM" on basket on right. A rider in an emerald shawl and crimson blouse sits astride a turquoise beast whose oversized human face gazes out beneath pink-lined ears, the whole balanced upon a mustard-yellow plinth. Modeled from local clay, hand-painted in exuberant color, and finished with a lustrous coat of betus (birch-oil extract) that mimics glaze, this is a nagual: the shapeshifter of Mesoamerican belief, a person who transforms into animal form and wields that power for good or ill. The composition marries a human figure to a fantastical mount, a hallmark of the playful betus tradition rooted in the notion that every soul carries an animal counterpart. Signed with an "M" on the basket at the proper left and a "JM" on. the right. The palette is deliberately raucous, the modeling loose and spirited, each surface bearing the unmistakable hand of its maker. Barro Betus takes its name from the birch-oil extract ("betus") that artisans rub into their painted figures before a deliberately low-temperature firing, yielding a lacquered sheen without true vitreous glaze. The tradition as practiced today is credited to Candelario Medrano, a sewer-pipe maker of Santa Cruz de las Huertas near Tonala who began shaping the pipe clay into fantastical devils, lions, roosters, churches, trucks, and Tastuanes (grotesque figures drawn from a local ceremonial dance). His grandson Juan Jose Ramos Medrano, who signs his work "JJRM," has carried the craft forward from small figures to elaborate assemblages crowded with dozens of attached figures, digging his clay from beds near his home and firing in a brick kiln prepared days in advance. The nagual (also spelled nahual, pronounced "nah-wahl") is a human able to transform into animal shape, often a donkey, turkey, or dog, but potentially a more powerful creature. The belief interweaves with tonalism, the widespread Mesoamerican conviction that each person is bound to an animal counterpart sharing their life force. English renderings sometimes translate the term as "witch transformation." Item # 203679

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