Author: Elena Phipps

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Image feature a colorful wool border depicting birds and flowers. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
The Complexities of Cross Looping
During the period from around 100 B.C. to 400 A.D., Nasca needleworkers from the South Coast of Peru mastered the complex art of three-dimensional cross-looping. A number of colorful and complicated border fragments like this one have been preserved. The few garments that remain intact show that they were used as the outer edging attached...
This object features: Small, square weaving with a grid of stepped motifs alternating off-white with a palette of soft shades: violet, blue-green, brown, terra cotta, and yellow. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
James Bassler, Thread by Thread
Paired sets of stepped blocks in harmony and balance echo an ancient process. James Bassler (American, b. 1933), in his work Six by Four II, incorporates an aesthetic of pure color through the interlacing of warps and wefts in a special way. By changing the colors of each block, linked one to the other, thread...
Image features a textile band with a lattice pattern having a cross in each diamond-shaped field. The lattice and crosses are white outlined with red, on a brown ground. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
A Blended Colonial Aesthetic
In recognition of National Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15-October 15, 2019), this week’s Object Of The Day posts celebrate Latinx design and designers’ works in the collection. This rather ordinary looking band is actually extraordinary. Made in Mexico during the Spanish colonial period (likely mid-15th- early 16th c.) it is composed with a Spanish aesthetic,...
Image features: Mantle decorated with series of broad and narrow horizontal bands in reds, pale tan, cream, pale yellow, blues, silver. A broad band across the middle is made up of ten narrow bands, with adjacent rectangles containing Inca geometric patterns and some adapted Tiahuanaco eye forms, separated throughout and edged top and bottom with variety of guard stripes. Above and below this broad central band are slightly narrower pink bands, edged top and bottom with small stepped scallops and filled with close-set mermaids and bird, fish, animal and floral motives, seemingly scattered, but actually set symmetrically on either side of two central vases set one above the other in each band and filled with flowers and fruit. Two narrow bands with attendant varied guard stripes border the mantle at top and bottom; the inner red band is similar to the bands in the center of the mantle; the outer cream-grounded band contains a series of bird, fish, and floral motives symmetrically spaced on either side of the central axis of the mantle; pink guard stripes terminate the mantle at top and bottom. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Andean Women’s Mantle
This post was originally published on December 20th, 2012. This beautiful cloth is a woman’s shoulder mantle, called a lliclla in the Quechua language of the Inca Empire, and was made during the colonial period of Peru. A perfect blend of the cross-cultural elements of the 16th- and 17th-century era of global trade, the Chinese...
Image features: Fragment of a mantle with close-set horizontal rows of stylized warriors' heads, each with different headdress and color combinations. In the top row, upright front-facing heads alternate with upside down heads in profile. In the next row, upright heads in profile alternate with upside down front-facing heads. Rich muted shades of brown, gold, tan, blue, green, purple, and white on a rust-red ground. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Portrait Heads
The production of this type of cloth was confined to a brief period of great artistic achievement in the Nasca region. The portrait heads appear to be of human rather than deity figures, and seem to represent individuals of varied status and perhaps ethnicity, signaled by the wearing of certain accoutrements. Features of the figures...
Mystical Incan Band
The fine weaving of this narrow band, with eccentric wefts that follow the diagonals of the design, marks it as a special item. Among the brilliantly dyed blue, yellow and red yarns, a fuzzy, coffee-colored yarn stands out. The fiber source may be an extremely fine camelid, such as the wild guanaco, or rabbit hair,...
Peruvian Nets
Knotted netting is one of the most ancient methods of constructing textiles, often used for functional objects essential to early cultures, such as bags, snares and nets. Many examples have been found in the middens, or refuse piles, of the Pre-ceramic cultures of the desert coast of Peru. Nets played an essential role in fishing:...
An Elegant Duality
Andean cloth has many meanings. Some are expressed through complex iconographic representations, others employ a strictly geometric vocabulary. Another form of meaning comes from the materiality of the cloth itself and way it was made. This simple cloth is composed of interlocking stepped squares in contrasting colors. The duality of the design, like the Chinese...
Color Play
The wild and syncopated play of color and pattern in this tie-dyed textile from ancient Peru seems to counter the meticulous and steadied hand of the Andean weaver. The fabric was in fact specially woven in discreet, stepped-shaped units that were cut apart and re-assembled after being tie-dyed, mixing up the variously dyed sections. Several...