Lot 116
Pre-Columbian, West Mexico, Colima, ca. 300 BCE to 300 CE. A hand-built and highly burnished pottery vessel in the shape of a corpulent canine companion. Covered in red slip, the pudgy pooch presents with a massive body standing atop a quartet of nubbin legs and with a slanted spout on the verso that doubles as the tail. The raised head exhibits incised coffee-bean-shaped eyes, a perky snout with incised nostrils, a slender incised mouth, and a pair of perky ears. Size: 8.7" L x 5.25" W x 6.8" H (22.1 cm x 13.3 cm x 17.3 cm)
Scholars know of at least two types of Colima dogs, one to be fattened up and ritually sacrificed or eaten and one to serve as a watchdog and healer of the ill. This plump hairless canine known as a Chichi or Escuintla is thought to be related to the Chihuahua or Mexican Hairless also known as the Xoloitzcuintle. The Xolo dog was named for the deity Xolotl, the God of the Underworld, and believed to guide the deceased as they journeyed to the afterlife. Colima vessels like this example were buried in shaft tombs to protect the deceased and provide sustenance for eternity.
Provenance: private Kansas, USA collection, acquired via descent from family in Jalisco, Mexico ca. the 1940s, and imported into the US in the 1970s and 1980s
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#171495
- Condition: Chips to tip of tail spout and toes of back-right leg, with abrasions and fading to pigment, light pitting with surface roughness, softening to some finer facial details, and light encrustations, otherwise intact and very good. Nice preservation to overall form.
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