Dog Head (500–1000): Art, History and Details

Dog Head (500–1000) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This dog's snarl and protruding fangs lend him a sinister expression. Although pierced for suspension, the head seems too large and fragile to have been a pendant. Press-molds, used to create the dog's face and ears, were commonly used in the Gulf Coast region, where asphalt occurs naturally and was applied to pottery as a paint after firing.

Object facts

• Title: Dog Head
• Date: 500–1000
• Culture: Mexico, Gulf Coast
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: earthenware, asphalt and resin paint
• Dimensions: Overall: 10.7 x 14.8 x 17.8 cm (4 3/16 x 5 13/16 x 7 in.)
• Collection: AA - Mesoamerica
• Department: Art of the Americas
• Accession number: 1990.250

A detail from the museum

This ceramic was analyzed using thermoluminescence dating; it was fired between 900 and 1,500 years ago.

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. James C. Gruener

Further reading listed by the museum

• Young-Sánchez, Margaret. "The Gruener Collection of Pre-Columbian Art." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 79, no. 7 (1992): 234-75.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.