Roman Catholics aren’t the only folks with virgin births of Messianic proportions, in the Popol vuh a young princess from the Underworld (Xibalba) gives birth to not one Messiah but two!
In this tale as I discussed before in earlier posts ,the young princess, Xquic encounters the freshly sacrificed head of the apparently still quite virile Maize God, Hun Hunahpu. His head, now perched upon the branches of a calabash tree greets our fair maiden quite crudely. The Maize God spits into Xquic’s hand resulting in the miraculous birth of the Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque (earlier post).
Today’s maquette is of this Virgin Mother.
This was a trickier maquette in that I wanted her clothed, not nude as I have been working with. I am still working out having Classical drapery flow when fastened by brads, clumsy, but I’m working on it.
One of my goals was to depict the Virgin Mother not only draped but with a vision of her miraculous twins. With a small brad pivoting to reveal her treasures I was able to accomplish my goal.
Not unlike an early anatomical mannikin.
My resource for costume was Professor Manuel Aguilar-Moreno’s indispensable Handbook to Life in the Aztec World. The following illustration taken from that book (365) is of an Aztec noblewoman. Aguilar-Moreno, quoting Fray Bernadino de Sahagún (responsible for the Florentine Codex) informs us that Aztec women used an herbal dye that “…produced a purple shining in the hair.” (368).
Hence the purple coif.
Well that is it for this evening , another long day, must start afresh tomorrow.
Until next time,
take care,
Boondocks Babylon
Boondocks Babylon 
Leonard, you’re ablaze with maquette creativity. When do you sleep?
I can see lots of interestingly complicated articulation going on in this figure, and can imagine you getting all sorts of shapes out of it to aid compositions.
I work during the week when David is in Beverly Hills, the good thing about the boondocks is there isn’t much to distract me from work. i usually tend to pedestrian tasks on the weekend . David arrives by train this evening so today will most likely be my last full studio day until Monday.
I’m enjoying designing articulating pieces, I find myself wanting to make them more and more complex. Thank goodness for teeny brads. I’m going to purchase some more, do you need any? I would gladly ship them to.
Take care,
LG
That’s kind of you Leonard, but I have a good supply that were sent to me by Anita Mills a little while back. Right now I’m not using brads at all as the components of The Soldier’s Tale maquettes are loose. But if I have any problems finding the small ones in the UK… and I doubt that I will as scrap-books are big here too.. I’ll get back to you. Thanks for the thought.