I think of the subject of this clay sculpture as being a Moorish queen, but I didn’t actually have a specific historical figure in mind when making it. The term “Moorish” is a funny one because it seems to have originally referred to the Mauri people of ancient North Africa, but then evolved into a term for darker-skinned people in general (with “mauros” even evolving into the modern Greek word for the color black) as well as Muslims of any ethnicity. Perhaps the most famous Moors in history were the ones who invaded Spain from North Africa during the eighth century AD, therefore giving rise to the Islamic al-Andalus.