The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

Red-brown ceramic vessel of a sealion pup, sitting back on its rear fins and bracing itself with two, longer front fins turned out from the body. A round face fuses with the body, with an open mouth and beige detailed whiskers, stripe from nose through forehead, eyebrows, and eye outline. Small, bean-shaped ears extend back from the eye. A circular handle, the center from which protrudes as spout, sticks out from the pups back.

Sea Lion Pup Vessel

200–850 CE

Central Andes, North Coast, Moche people

ceramic and slip
Overall: 19.7 x 15.5 x 16 cm (7 3/4 x 6 1/8 x 6 5/16 in.)
Gift of John and Agneta Solomon 2014.375
Location: 232 Andean

Did You Know?

Moche potters were skilled at producing charming images using only red and white slip.

Description

Sea lions commonly appear in Moche art as effigy vessels, like this appealing pup, or in complex scenes that often show them as the targets of human hunters. They may have been prized in part for the beach pebbles found in their stomachs; modern Peruvian folk healers consider such pebbles to have powerful medicinal qualities. Also, colonial-period natives believed that sea lions carried the dead to off-shore islands, an idea that could date to Moche times.
  • ?-1968
    (André Emmerich, New York, NY, sold to Benno Mattel)
    1968-1969
    Benno Mattel, Uruguay, gifted to his daughter Mrs. Ute Mahr
    1969-2013
    Mrs. Ute Mahr, Bridgeport, Connecticut, sold to David Bernstein Fine Arts
    2013-2014
    (David Bernstein Fine Arts, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
    2014-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Lapiner, Alan C. Art of Ancient Peru and Ecuador: A Sales Exhibition Organized in Cooperation with André Emmerich. New York: Arts of the Four Quarters, Ltd, 1968. fig. 29
    Lapiner, Alan C. Pre-Columbian Art of South America. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1976. p. 128, fig. 277
    Bergh, Susan. “Acquisition Highlights 2014: Pre-Columbian and Native North American Art.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 55, no. 2 (March/April 2015): 12-13. Reproduced and Mentioned: p. 13 archive.org
  • {{cite web|title=Sea Lion Pup Vessel|url=false|author=|year=200–850 CE|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2014.375