Demetrios Catrina

The most familiar Day of the Dead icon naturally also has a firm place in the Aguilar family's repertoire. Demetrio Aguilar's rustic version of La Catrina Calavera enchants with its wonderfully washed-out colors and a magnificent trademark skull in the style of his famous mother Josefina. The clay sculpture's expansive hat is adorned with two leaves and small flowers at the top and a detailed, shimmering metallic feathered snake nestles gently around La Catrina's shoulders. The sculpture is hollow on the inside and rests securely on the dress's thick material, which also acts as a base. The artist's signature is worked into the material on the back. 

The figure of La Catrina Calavera was drawn by the Mexican caricaturist José Guadalupe Posada at the beginning of the 19th century. The illustration of the skeleton of the elegant high society lady with the sweeping hat was a sarcastic dig at the Mexican upper class and became an omnipresent icon of Dia de los Muertos over the course of the century. Posada's original La Catrina design consisted only of the skull and hat. The full-body figure as we know it today was later brought to life by Diego Riviera in his mural Sueño de una tarde dominical en la Alameda Central.