Nayarit Chinesco Standing Figure with Painted Face, Likely a Captive

Pre-Columbian, West Mexico, Nayarit, Chinesco style. An intact, hollow-bodied pottery figure stands squarely on short, splayed legs, its arms drawn out of sight behind the back in a pose that likely marks it as a bound captive. The flat, shield-like face is the focal point. A lattice of red painted zigzags and chevrons spreads from brow to chin, framing narrow slit eyes, a jutting nose, and a small, firmly set mouth. A coiled turban-like band rings the head, and a thick collar sits at the throat. The torso is washed in burnished red slip, the hips and thighs are left a pale cream, perhaps for a wrapped loincloth, and red bands return at the shins. The calm, mask-like face and quiet frontality are typical of the Chinesco manner. The figure was likely made to accompany the dead in a shaft tomb. "Chinesco" is a collectors' name given in the mid-20th century to one group of Nayarit tomb ceramics. It refers to the broad faces and narrow, almond-slit eyes of these figures, which early dealers thought looked East Asian. The name has nothing to do with any actual contact with Asia. Chinesco figures belong to the West Mexican shaft tomb tradition, in which ceramic figures were placed in deep chambers cut into volcanic bedrock alongside the dead. Compared with the lively, crowded scenes of other Nayarit styles, Chinesco work is restrained and polished, often with elaborate painted patterns on the face and body. Figures with their arms tied behind them appear across several West Mexican tomb styles. They are usually read as captives taken in the raids and conflicts between rival communities. Placing them in a tomb may have honored the military status of the dead person, or provided a symbolic attendant for the afterlife. Neither reading can be confirmed for any single figure. Item # 205652

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