When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Local style, Central Pacific coast, Chancay Culture. (1100-1470 CE)
Slit tapestry.
Frame = 10” x 9” (25.4cm x 22.8cm)
Textile = 4.5” x 4.5” (11.4cm x 11.43 cm)
In pre-Columbian Andean cultures, the most exquisite textiles were more highly valued than other material goods, including gold & silver. These textiles were woven as sacred offerings to the deities; as garments to indicate the wearer’s noble status; as a medium for the transmission of religion; for political purposes; and for trade.
Because of the supreme importance of these textiles, the most skilled weavers had both the time to explore a broad range of techniques and to create imaginative designs, as well as the materials to produce the most valuable textiles. Pre-Columbian Andean weavers independently invented nearly all of the non-mechanized textile techniques known today, as well as a broad range of creative designs. As a result, their most elaborate textiles are the finest handmade in the Western Hemisphere and among the world’s most exquisite.
Design: This textile is composed of three bands. The broad central band depicts three birds in profile, and the feathers are delineated, as well as the separate claws in each foot. The upper and lower bands have a typical wave-step motif, which suggests that the birds are water fowl. The color scheme juxtaposes solid, jewel-like colors characteristic of Chancay textiles.
Technique: This fragment illustrates an advanced technique (slit tapestry) and an imaginative design, which are typical of Chancay, the preeminent weaving culture. The yarn is dyed with all-natural dyes and hand-spun with camelid fibers for the weft and cotton for the warp. The wefts are the set of crosswise threads; and the warps are the set of lengthwise, load-bearing threads that are attached to the top and bottom bars of the loom.
The weaver hand-wove it on a back-strap loom, the traditional loom of the Andes. It basically consists of a bar at the top of the loom and a bar at the bottom, with the warp threads strung tautly in between. The top bar is attached by a cord to a fixed object, such as a tree. The bottom bar is attached to a belt around the weaver’s waist, who can move to hold the warp threads taut.
The textile is a slit tapestry. Tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in which the weft threads hide all of the warp threads in the completed work. The weaver interlaces each colored weft back and forth in its own small pattern area, so the weave is discontinuous. A slit is a physical gap between adjacent color areas, in which the weft threads turn back without looping around each other between warps.
Condition of the fragment: Good condition for its age and well-preserved. It was buried in the sand of the arid Pacific desert, where conditions are so dry that organic material remains well-preserved for centuries. The weft has retained much of its luster and the vibrancy of its colors. The weaving of the fragment is intact, except for a small section in the lower lefthand corner.
Provenance of this textile: My wife and I purchased this textile in 1974 and brought it legally into the United States in 1975, well before the US’s Cultural Property Implementation Act (CPIA) went into effect in1983. The textile is legal to buy and sell.
