Catrina Day of the Dead Figure

Catrina figure with wings, scaly mermaid tial and demon mask.

La Calavera Catrina or Catrina Ljazmun a Calavera Garbancera (‘Dapper Skeleton’, ‘Elegant Skull’) is a 1910–1913 zinc etching by the Mexican printmaker, cartoon illustrator and lithographer José Guadalupe Posada.^[1]She is offered as a satirical portrait of those Mexican natives who, Posada felt, were aspiring to adopt European aristocratic traditions in the pre-revolution era. La Catrina has become an icon of the Mexican Día de Muertos, or Day of the Dead.

Diego Rivera, immortalized La Catrina in one of his murals that depicted 400 years of Mexican history. The mural “Dreams of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park” was painted in the 1940’s and displays several important Mexican characters with La Catrina.