THIS IS A CHANCE TO OWN A FOLK ART NATIVITY SET MADE BY A RENOWNED CLAY FOLK ARTIST. SOME GREAT MUSEUMS DISPLAY HER PIECES, AND SHE WILL MAKE NO MORE (R.I.P). While some of the figures had been put together, the set is colorful and miss nothing in telling the Nativity story.

The set is sold as a whole and as-is.

This vibrant Nativity scene appears to be a work of Mexican folk art, specifically from the Aguilar family of Ocotln de Morelos, Oaxaca.

The figures are constructed from hand-formed clay and painted with vivid colors in a distinctive whimsical style. While often attributed to sisters Josefina or Guillermina Aguilar, similar sets were also created by other family members like Irene Aguilar.

Aguilar's family dig the clay they use from a pit in a field outside of Ocotln de Morelos. To get the quality clay required they have to dig down 10 or 12 feet. They soak the clay, lay a palm mat over it, and walk on it to press out the bubbles. While sculpting, Aguilar sits on her heels on a flat stone. Finished figures have to dry indoors for a week (direct sunlight would cause them to crack) before the family fires them in a rustic woodenkilnfor nine hours. Many figures are lost to breakage. Those that survive the firing process have to cool overnight before they can be painted. The Aguilars sell their artwork on trestle tables set up in the open courtyard of their five-family complex.

Aguilar and her husband purchased the land where the clay for her work is sourced. Previously, the family paid weekly for the clay they used from this land.

Josefina Aguilar's work is displayed in:

the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, the Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin, Texas,

the San Antonio Museum of Art,

the Mexican Museumin San Francisco,

and the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago.

In 1977 Aguilar won first prize in the third Gran Premio de Arte Popular (Grand Prize in Folk Art) competition held in Irapuato, Guanajuato, by the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes. In 1980 she won second place in the first Concurso Nacional de Objetos Navideos Tradicionales (National Traditional Christmas Objects Contest) held in Mexico City by FONART. In 2004 she won the Galardn Pantalen Panduro in the Premio Nacional de la Cermica (National Ceramics Prize) competition held inSan Pedro Tlaquepaque, Jalisco.

Please be advised:

These are old pieces and they have cracks and glued back parts.

They don't seem to miss anything.

They are one of a kind even when Josefina and her sister made similar sets, each one is unique in shape and colors.

There will be no more of these. It was not mass produced and Ms. Aguilar passed.