Más Sugar Skulls

I continue to be fascinated obsessed with the sugar skulls available this time of year. These are the eight I bought the other day, still proudly on display in our apartment. I experimented with a variety of arrangements but have always been partial to photographs with selective focus.

A little history from the internet:
Sugar art was brought to the New World by Italian missionaries in the 17th century. The first Church mention of sugar art was from Palermo at Easter time when little sugar lambs and angels were made to adorn the side altars in the Catholic Church.

Mexico, abundant in sugar production and too poor to buy fancy imported European church decorations, learned quickly from the friars how to make sugar art for their religious festivals. Clay molded sugar figures of angels, sheep and sugar skulls go back to the Colonial Period 18th century. Sugar skulls represented a departed soul, had the name written on the forehead and was placed on the home ofrenda or gravestone to honor the return of a particular spirit.

Thanks to mexicansugarskull.com.