Vessel with Reclining Dog (1470–1532): Art, History and Details

Vessel with Reclining Dog (1470–1532) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This vessel represents a Peruvian hairless dog who has recently given birth and seems to be taking a break from maternal obligations. The meanings of such dogs may be connected to the trade networks that brought them to Peru from Mexico in the late pre-Hispanic period. Perhaps these foreign ties made them prestige animals whose breeding engendered further status for the owner.

Object facts

• Title: Vessel with Reclining Dog
• Date: 1470–1532
• Culture: Central Andes, North Coast, Chimú-Inka style
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: ceramic
• Dimensions: Overall: 16.5 x 17.8 x 10 cm (6 1/2 x 7 x 3 15/16 in.)
• Collection: AA - Andes
• Department: Art of the Americas
• Accession number: 2021.129

A detail from the museum

This vessel represents a Peruvian hairless dog who has recently given birth.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Princeton University, and Jay I. Kislak Reference Collection (Library of Congress). In Celebration: Works of Art from the Collections of Princeton Alumni and Friends of the Art Museum, Princeton University. [Princeton, N.J.]: The Museum, 1997.

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.