Dog with pups (c. 1780): Art, History and Details

Dog with pups (c. 1780) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Dogs were kept in the Mughal imperial palace and attentively cared for by one keeper for every two hunting dogs. Akbar’s biography notes that the emperor liked dogs so much he imported different breeds from distant lands, and Jahangir requested English hunting dogs from the ambassador Sir Thomas Roe. The tradition of collecting and keeping dogs was continued by the succeeding emperors and vassal kings.

Object facts

• Title: Dog with pups
• Date: c. 1780
• Culture: India, Rajasthan, Ajmer, probably Sawar school, 18th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera and ink on paper
• Dimensions: Image: 22 x 16.5 cm (8 11/16 x 6 1/2 in.); Overall: 18.7 x 25 cm (7 3/8 x 9 13/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1969.77

A detail from the museum

The newborn puppies are still too young to open their eyes.

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William E. Ward in memory of her father, Charles Svec

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.
• Kathman, Barbara A. A Cleveland Bestiary. Cleveland, OH; Cleveland Museum of Art, 1981.

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.