TLATILCO DOUBLE-FACE FEMALE FIGURE, TYPE D1 EARLY PRECLASSIC, CIRCA 1200-900 BC

D. Daniel Michel, Chicago, acquired in 1962 (inventory no. 62:083)

Ancient Art of the New World, New York, acquired from the above

American Private Collection, acquired in 1991

PUBLISHED

Leo Rosshandler, Man-Eaters and Pretty Ladies: Early Art in Central Mexico from the Gulf to the Pacific, 1500 BC-500 AD, New York and Montreal, 1971, cat. no. 70

Richard F. Townsend, The Art of Tribes and Early Kingdoms, Selections from Chicago Collections, Chicago, 1984, Fig. 51

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Man-Eaters and Pretty Ladies: Early Art in Central Mexico from the Gulf to the Pacific, 1500 BC-500 AD, January 15- March 8, 1971

The Art Institute of Chicago, The Art of Tribes and Early Kingdoms, Selections from Chicago Collections, January 12- March 4, 1984

The double-face figures are one of the most intriguing and unusual types of the Preclassic corpus. These figures and the double-headed type are believed to relate to the basic Mesoamerican concept of dualism, the complementary forces of male/female, day/night, life and death. Double-face figures consistently show three eyes, and two noses and two mouths. The delicate facial features of this figure include the wisp of her coiffure falling in front of one face as if her head was suddenly in motion. For other double-face figures, see Coe, The Jaguar's Children, New York, 1965, cat. nos. 103, 104. A rare later Classic Veracruz double-face head shows the same configuration of shared faces, see Parsons, Carlson, Joralemon, eds., The Face of Ancient America, The Wally and Brenda Zollman Collection, Indianapolis, 1988, cover, cat. no. 95.