Figure Item Number: 3462/12 from the MOA: University of British Columbia
Day of the Dead figure. Figure depicts a skeleton lying in an open casket. The skeleton's clothes are painted on, and consist of a black jacket and pants. Black hair is painted on top of the skeleton's head. The skeleton is holding a small rectangular object in its hands, and seems to be looking at it. The casket is held open by a thin metal rod on either end, and the interior is painted white. The exterior is painted black. There is a gold cross, and additional gold patterns consisting of swirls and straight lines, painted along the lid. The bottom half of the casket is outlined with vertical gold dashes.
Figures like these, made by local artisans, have commonly been sold in indigenous markets throughout Mexico, especially for Day of the Dead celebrations. The figures are used as domestic decorations and presents for children. In 2019 Shelton noted that both the large Oaxaca market and the Sonora market in Mexico City had far fewer stalls selling this type of figure than there had been twenty years earlier. One maker in Oaxaca said domestic demand had declined, and that there were fewer artisans as many of the older makers had died and their children hadn't taken-up the craft. Some of the artisans make skeletal figures encased in glass, to sell to tourists through folk art shops.
Purchased directly from the maker in Oaxaca in 2019. Sra. Elipidia Chacon Ruiz told Shelton that her parents had also been potters in Oaxaca. She is in her 80s, and has taught her daughters and their children how to make the figures. She also told him it was the younger members of her family that came up with the idea of making skeletons in cars and racing cars.