Male Dog
Unknown Artist
200 BCE–300 CE
Medium
earthenware with burnished red slip
Dimensions
{"overall":{"height":0.395,"width":0.208,"depth":0.478}}
Classification
Sculpture
Department
Art of the Americas
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Cornelia Blakemore Warner Fund
Accession Number
1964.37
About this artwork
One of the best-known subjects of West Mexican tomb sculpture is the native hairless dog, which is shown naturalistically-as here-but also wearing a human mask, signaling complex meanings.These meanings are not well-understood, but like later Mesoamericans, West Mexicans may have believed that dogs served as guides or guards in the underworld realm of the dead. For the living, they also served as food.