What printmaking form was La Calavera Catrina when Posada created it?

La Calavera Catrina was a zinc etching when José Guadalupe Posada created it.

Posada was a Mexican printmaker known for inexpensive, widely circulated illustrations and satirical calaveras—images of skeletons used to comment on politics and society. He worked with relief-printing techniques, and La Calavera Catrina originated as a zinc etching, also described in accounts as a photo-relief etching.

The image presents an elegant skeletal woman wearing an elaborate hat. Posada’s satire targeted Mexicans who copied European fashions and tried to present themselves as aristocratic during the Porfiriato. The skeleton suggested that social status and fashion could not defeat death.

The original print should not be confused with later paintings, murals, costumes, mosaics, or sugar-skull designs inspired by Catrina. Diego Rivera later transformed Posada’s half-length print into a full-scale figure in his 1946–47 mural, helping make La Catrina a national and international symbol of Día de Muertos.