Sea Lion Pup Vessel (200–850 CE): Art, History and Details

Sea Lion Pup Vessel (200–850 CE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Sea lions commonly appear in Moche art as effigy vessels, like this appealing pup, or in complex scenes that often show them as the targets of human hunters. They may have been prized in part for the beach pebbles found in their stomachs; modern Peruvian folk healers consider such pebbles to have powerful medicinal qualities. Also, colonial-period natives believed that sea lions carried the dead to off-shore islands, an idea that could date to Moche times.

Object facts

• Title: Sea Lion Pup Vessel
• Date: 200–850 CE
• Culture: Central Andes, North Coast, Moche people
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: ceramic and slip
• Dimensions: Overall: 19.7 x 15.5 x 16 cm (7 3/4 x 6 1/8 x 6 5/16 in.)
• Collection: AA - Andes
• Department: Art of the Americas
• Accession number: 2014.375

A detail from the museum

Moche potters were skilled at producing charming images using only red and white slip.

Collection credit

Gift of John and Agneta Solomon

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lapiner, Alan C. Art of Ancient Peru and Ecuador: A Sales Exhibition Organized in Cooperation with André Emmerich. New York: Arts of the Four Quarters, Ltd, 1968.
• Lapiner, Alan C. Pre-Columbian Art of South America. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1976.
• Bergh, Susan. “Acquisition Highlights 2014: Pre-Columbian and Native North American Art.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 55, no. 2 (March/April 2015): 12-13.

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.