Las Meninas
Simone Leigh · 2019 · Cleveland Museum of Art
Guide
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From the museum
Las Meninas draws on traditions throughout global art and culture to address issues surrounding the female body, race, beauty, and community. The work’s skirted form conjures figures from the Spanish Golden Age painting Las Meninas (1656) by Diego Velazquez, apparel worn in the Afro-Brazilian religious tradition candomblé, and Mousgoum buildings in Cameroon. The white-glazed terracotta torso, alluding to sacred and secular traditions of body painting, leads to a faceless head, incorporating both figuration and abstraction. The hollow face is surrounded by dozens of small porcelain flowers.
The museum’s own description, in English. Licence: CC0
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Details
- Maker
- Simone Leigh (American, b. 1967)
- Date
- 2019
- Medium
- steel, raffia
- Dimensions
- Overall: 121.3 x 208.3 x 148 cm (47 3/4 x 82 x 58 1/4 in.)
- Place of origin
- America
- Held by
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland · On view · 229A Contemporary
- Credit line
- Purchased with funds donated by Scott Mueller