This seated female figure giving birth comes from the Guanacaste-Nicoya polychrome tradition, the Galo polychrome style. Its mirror-bright burnished surfaces are technically unsurpassed by any Pre-Columbian pottery, and yellows, reds, oranges, creams, maroons, and blacks of the polychrome decorations are impressively vivid. Among such sculptures are the full human figures with elaborate representations of tattoos or body paint. Such brilliant polychrome tradition represent an important social dimension; when the northern trade network that brought jade, slate-backed pyrite mirrors, foreign ceramics, and other luxury goods, the Gicoyans responded by producing their own special purpose pottery. Inspired by northern models, it also incorporated local and southern elements, forming a dazzling hybrid style that was traded around Central America and southern Meso-America in the centuries to come. Elaborately decorated with colors and patterns, this sculpted female is a dramatic, almost abstract depiction of fertility and life. Like a beautiful mother-goddess, she encompasses the cherished idea of birth, life, and fecundity. A fine example of Galo polychrome figures, she provides a wealth of ethnographic detail because of the realistic style. Her flat headdress, earspools, and body painting or tattooing are all vividly shown. Moreover, she bends forward with her hands holding her knees, as if she is trying to persevere the pain of the childbirth. Her torso is extremely elongated to emphasize the process of a baby being born, a life being created. Created in a birthing position, her maternal beauty is undeniable.