Joseph Haddad, Los Angeles
Edwin and Cherie Silver, Los Angeles, acquired from the above on October 9, 1972

Inventoried by Hasso von Winning, November 2, 1972, no. 98, a and b

Fowler Museum of Cultural History, UCLA, Los Angeles, Companions of the Dead: Ceramic Tomb Sculpture from Ancient West Mexico, October 11 - November 27, 1983
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Ancient West Mexico: Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past, September 5, 1998 - November 22, 1998, continuing to
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, December 20, 1998- March 29, 1999

Hasso von Winning, The Shaft Tomb Figures of West Mexico, Los Angeles, 1974, p. 163, fig. 274 (female figure)
Jacki Gallagher, Companions of the Dead: Ceramic Tomb Sculpture from Ancient West Mexico, Los Angeles, 1983, p. 113, fig. 143 
Richard F. Townsend, ed., Ancient West Mexico: Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past, Chicago, 1998, p. 237, fig. 8

This family group is the most elaborate and ornately decorated of the Silvers' West Mexican couples, a tour de force of form and color, and a defining model of the Ixtlán del Rio style of elite ancestor figures. With lively and vibrant identical expressions, poised in their respective roles (holding a nursing child and playing a rasp), they portray a youthful couple that have fulfilled their achievements and celebrate the continuity of their status. The couple is a confirmation of "gender complementarity," described as the idealized portrayal of male and female roles as separate but interdependent and supportive spheres of activity (Pirtle, in Beekman and Pickering, eds., Reassessment, 2016, p. 159). Pirtle’s study of attributes denoting gender and status in Ixtlán figures emphasized how status and gender were shown by the frequency of both male and female figures participating in all rituals.

The "imperceptible difference in adornments between the sexes may indicate that participation in ritual was about status or families and less about gender” (ibid.).

Ancestor worship was an important practice and belief system throughout West Mexico, and was integral for establishing status and power (Butterwick, Heritage of Power, 2004, p. 11). Townsend describes the🐭 "festive pairs" as commemorating marriage and referencing the primordial union of male and female creative forces. Butterwick refers to the ancestral couple, possibly sibling ancestors, as the highest ranking individuals as they established land territori💞es and control of the resources within the area.

Found🐓ing ancestor ceramics reinforced their kinship ties through their shared facial features, elaborate body designs, jewelry, and clothing. On this couple, both their faces are covered in curvilinear and segmented designs highlighting their open mouths and wide, rimmed eyes. Their excessive jewelry includes the dense arc of earrings, beaded necklaces, and crescentic pendant, as well as effigy nose ornaments. The female nurses a child clinging to her bare chest which is highlighted by zigzag designs. Her tight fitting skirt is patterned with alternating squares of diagonal stripes and s♍croll motifs which are repeated on the man’s short-sleeved tunic. He plays an effigy rasp that is humorously modeled as a couple engaged in lively conversation, their joined elongated bodies forming the rasp with their feet projecting at the bottom. The male wears a peaked cap with a stiff segmented brim that is secured with an animal pelt showing paws at each side.

Clothing details on ceramic figures such as these are the only source of insight into the textiles of ancient Mexico, the actual fabrics long lost in the archaeological record.  In addition, textile exchange was part of the larger trade networks along the Pacific coast whereby the valuable, and in some cases sacred, raw materials such as spondylus and obsidian available in Mexico were traded to Ecuador and the larger Andean region. There is a distinct similarity of textile styles found in Ecuadorian Chorrera and Bahia phase figures (spanning 1500 BC-AD 500) and the Ixtlán del Rio figures (Figs. 1 and 2). Patricia Anawalt extensively studied textiles of ancient Mesoamerica, with particular research on the textile patterns of the Tarascan empire (AD 900-1500s) as shown in the sixteenth century colonial document Relación de Michoacán. She showed that distinct designs on Ixtlán figures are the same as clothing illustrated in the Relación. She further concludes, “Within Mesoamerica the tradition of Ecuadorian-style clothing marked into geometric squares is known only in West Mexico, both at Ixtlán del Rio and, over a thousand years later, among the sixteenth–century Tarascans” (Anawalt, in Townsend, ed., Ancient West Mexico, 1998, p. 242). Besides specific jewelry such as tusk pendants, she observed  that short breeches, short-sleeved tunics, women's wrapround skirts, and the step-fret motif are key attributes shared in both Ecuadorian and Ixtlán del Rio figures (ibid., p. 237). 

There is joy and a celebration of life conveyed by this couple with their infantꦐ. They are participants in a timeless affirmation of the community and the accomplishments of broader societal roles.