Colima Seated Dog

American Private Collection, acquired by February, 1971

Thence by descent to the present owner

Art Institute of Chicago, Ancient West Mexico: Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past, September 5 - November 22, 1998, additional venue:

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, December 20, 1998 - March 29, 1999

Gerard Berjonneau, Jean-Louis Sonnery, Emile Deletaille, Rediscovered Masterpieces of Mesoamerica, Boulogne, 1985, pl. 208

Richard Townsend, ed., Ancient West Mexico, Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past, Chicago, 1998, pg. 271, fig. 6

The canine effigy vessels of the Comala style are soulful representations that encompass the widely varied roles that dogs held in ancient communities. At times playful, at rest or sleeping, snarling, alert and protective, the dog was known as a important companion in life and death. The name xoloitzcuintle comes from the Aztec language and combines the canine-deity “Xolotl” with the word for dog, “itzcuintle.” Xololt is depicted with canine traits, and was meant to accompany the dead in their journey through the dangers of the underworld up into the night sky to dwell with one’s ancestors.

The finely wrinkled body of this sculpture is a rarer genre within the type, animating the tense and alert posture emphasized by the curled back ears. The body is carefully slipped in light brown and reddish brown accentuating the limbs. The nostrils are wide and the rear haunches barely touch the ground in his readied stance.

Cf. For the wrinkled body type see the Proctor Stafford Collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, in Michael Kan, Clement Meighan and H.B. Nicholson, Sculpture of Ancient West Mexico, Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, The Proctor Stafford Collection, Los Angeles, 1970, p. 94, fig. 152, (reprinted 1989, p. 150, fig. 148, and p. 64 [color plate); see also Sotheby’s, Paris, December 12, 2024, lot 25 for a highly similar dog, perhaps from the same workshop.