Stone kneeling figure of Chalchiuhtlicue
Mexica*, AD 1325-1521
From Mexico
A water goddess
This stone sculpture represents Chalchiuhtlicue, the Mexica
water goddess. Chalchiuhtlicue means 'she of the jade skirt' in
Nahuatl, the language spoken by the Mexica. She was associated with
the spring water, rivers and lakes, and also with birth. According
to an Mexica creation myth there were four suns (or worlds)
before the present one. Chalchiuhtlicue presided over the fourth
one, which was destroyed by floods and its people turned into
fishes.
Female figurines, kneeling or standing, are a recurring theme
in Mexica sculpture. Most of them have distinctive
characteristics that identify them as fertility goddesses. They are
always represented as young women and they wear a variety of
headdresses. In some cases, like in this example, their hair is
arranged in two large tassels on both sides of the head. Other
fertility deities, such as the maize goddesses, wear a large
rectangular headdress made of rigid bark paper and ornamented with
rosettes. Here, Chalchiuhtlicue wears the traditional shawl
(quechquemitl), also trimmed with tassels, over a long
skirt. Her eyes were probably made of shell, like in many
other Mexica sculptures.
This piece was acquired by William Bullock, a famous collector
of Mexican antiquities, in 1823 and exhibited at the Egyptian Hall,
in Piccadilly.
*The people and culture we know as 'Aztec' referred to
themselves as the Mexica (pronounced Me-shee-ka).
M. E. Miller and K. Taube, An illustrated dictionary of t (London, Thames and Hudson, 1997)
H.B. Nicholson and E. Quiñones Keber, Art of Aztec Mexico, treasures (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1983)
C. McEwan, Ancient Mexico in the British (London, The British Museum Press, 1994)