Ritual Impersonator of the Deity Xipe Totec
Mexica (Aztec) (Possibly central Veracruz, Mexico)
1450–1500
- Medium
- Ceramic and pigment
- Classification
- Sculpture
- Dimensions
- H.: 58.4 cm (23 in.)
- Culture
- Veracruz state
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of the Americas
- Credit line
- Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel A. Marx
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Adult profiles and older: its museum's description or title mentions violence, death or gore. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
As a god of the late dry season and early rainy season (May–June), Xipe Totec (“The Flayed One”) expresses regeneration. By the time of Spanish contact in 1519, the cult of this deity was widespread throughout Mesoamerica. This figure depicts a young male wearing the skin of a sacrificed victim, a primary symbolic aspect of rituals conducted during agricultural fertility ceremonies dedicated to this deity. The lines across the chest represent stitched seams where the skin was fastened. Like living seed within a dried husk, the deity impersonator embodies the relationship between death and the renewal of life.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
