La Calavera Catrina
('Dapper Skeleton', 'Elegant Skull') is a 1910–1913 zinc etching by famous
Mexican printmaker, cartoon illustrator and lithographer José Guadalupe Posada.
The image depicts a female skeleton dressed only in a hat befitting the upper class
outfit of a European of her time. Her chapeau en attende is related to French
and European styles of the early 20th century. She is offered as a satirical
portrait of those Mexican natives who, Posada felt, were aspiring to adopt
European aristocratic traditions in the pre-revolutionary era. She in
particular has become an icon of the Mexican Día de los Muertos, or Day of the
Dead.
