Female Figure 10th century B.C. Tlatilco This solid, hand-modeled ceramic figurine is reddish tan to yellow in color and painted with an orange-red pigment. Featuring bulbous hips, a small waist, and diminutive arms, little regard is given to anatomical accuracy. A necklace conforms to the thick contours of the neck, and the central hair bun extends down the back of the head. Neither of the small perforations in the oversized ears continues to the backside. Sculpted some three millennia ago in the Valley of Mexico, this figurine belongs to a group of ceramic effigies known collectively as the Tlatilco "pretty ladies." Depicting females with large heads, small waists, and prominent hips, these handheld sculptures present a fairly standardized body type and are typically fired to red, buff, or brown tones. As the popular embodiments of an ideal feminine form, the Tlatilco "pretty ladies" are part of a centuries-long tradition in which eccentricities and religious imagery predominate. Fea