Sleeping Puppies on a Mat (c. 1895–1915): Art, History and Details

Sleeping Puppies on a Mat (c. 1895–1915) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is House of Fabergé (Russian, 1842–1918).

The work and its context

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

In creating luxurious accessories for a desk or tabletop, Fabergé often used native hardstones such as multicolored agate and jasper, green nephrite, pink rhodonite, and rock crystal found in the Ural Mountains of western Russia. By paying careful attention to the unique colors and textures of the stones, Fabergé and his craftsmen brought them to life, turning milky agate into a begging poodle or brown and black jasper into these sleeping puppies. The use of native materials also promoted Russian nationalism, which appealed greatly to the tsar and his family.

Object facts

• Title: Sleeping Puppies on a Mat
• Date: c. 1895–1915
• Creator attribution: House of Fabergé (Russian, 1842–1918)
• Culture: Russia, St. Petersburg
• Type: Miscellaneous
• Technique: agate, chalcedony
• Dimensions: Overall: 2.9 x 11.7 x 9.9 cm (1 1/8 x 4 5/8 x 3 7/8 in.)
• Collection: Decorative Arts
• Department: Decorative Art and Design
• Accession number: 1966.451

A detail from the museum

Fabergé's artisans used multiple types of stone to make each puppy unique. Even the little rug they are sleeping on is made of stone.

Collection credit

The India Early Minshall Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Hawley, Henry H. Fabergé and His Contemporaries: The India Early Minshall Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1967.
• Habsburg, Géza von, and David Park Curry. Fabergé in America. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1996.
• Fabergé, Peter Carl, and Deborah E. Horowitz. The Fabergé Menagerie. London: Philip Wilson Pub, 2003.

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.