The Birthing Figure is striking, powerful, and entirely unparalleled. When acquired in 1947 for the collection at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., this statue of a goddess giving birth was widely believed to be a pre-Columbian artifact representing Tlazolteotl, a complex Aztec goddess. An Earth deity, she also ruled over the areas of love, fertility, and lust. She displayed a cruel streak, causing madness among some mortals. But in her role as a childbirth deity, known as “the great woman in labor,” she showed a kinder aspect. This Aztec-style sculpture of a woman giving birth conveys well the agony and ecstasy of childbirth. It is expertly carved in a hard, speckled stone called aplite, and has long impressed viewers including artists, scholars, and prominent collectors of Pre-Columbian art. Its unique iconography and carving have also sparked a lively debate about its origins and authenticity.

First mentioned in an 1899 publication by the French anthropologist E.T. Hamy, the sculpture has been compared to a representation of the goddess Tlazolteotl in the act of childbirth, featured in the Codex Borbonicus. This goddess, whose name translates as eater of filth, was associated with sexuality and the purification of sins. In the codices, she wears a large cotton headdress and crescent-shaped ornaments on her nose and/or clothing. Her mouth is blackened with filth.

The Birthing Figure sculpture is unusual in that it features none of Tlazolteotl’s usual attributes. The figure is naked and unadorned, unlike any other carving of an Aztec deity. Since the 1960s, scholars have pointed to other unusual features, such as the figure’s sharp edges and impeccably straight hair. Some have suggested that the carving might not be the work of Aztec carvers. A 2002 examination of the piece under a scanning electron microscope (SEM) confirmed that much of the carving was done using modern rotary tools. It appears that the Dumbarton Oaks Birthing Figure was carved – or perhaps re-carved – during the 19th century.

The sculpture’s history is worth mentioning. At the dawn of the 20th century, it circulated among several members of France’s Academy of Sciences and was documented by the anthropologist E.T. Hamy, who created a plaster cast for the Musée d’Ethnographie du Trocadéro. By the early 1930s, the figure was in the possession of the Parisian art dealer Charles Ratton, who sold it to New York-based art dealer and collector, Joseph Brummer. Brummer treasured the piece as part of his personal collection until his death in 1947. It was then that Robert Woods Bliss, founder of Dumbarton Oaks, acquired the Birthing Figure. He put it on display, first at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and from 1963, at the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection in Washington, D.C.

The Birthing Figure has appeared in many books, exhibit catalogs, and other publications. It has also inspired numerous artistic endeavors. The Surrealist photographer Man Ray created a four-part photomontage (ca. 1932) that highlighted the piece’s dynamic lines. The painter Diego Rivera included the sculpture in his mural The History of Medicine in Mexico (1953-54). The artist Eduardo Paolozzi fashioned an oversized copy in papier mâché that he included in a traveling exhibition of his artwork (1988). Arguably the most famous reincarnation of the figure is as the Golden Idol in Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).