Browse Items (35 total)

Qumpi, what the Inka called cloth made as well as humanly possible, is a deeply Andean category of clothing. Function, such as this being a man’s shirt, was not seen as opposite of what we may call art, the most skilled, aesthetic, intentional, and…

Of the incredible range of techniques and ideas that the ancient Andean textile artists developed, this piece required perhaps the most complicated creative process of all. At first glance, it simply seems like bits of tie-dyed cloth sewn together in…

Most Native Americans consider bird feathers not only beautiful, but sacred gifts from the Winged Beings since molted feathers fall on the ground as if from the celestial realm. Tropical feathers especially exhibit brilliant natural coloration.…

Most Native Americans consider bird feathers not only beautiful, but sacred gifts from the Winged Beings since molted feathers fall on the ground as if from the celestial realm. Tropical feathers especially exhibit brilliant natural coloration.…

Indigenous Amerindian clothing has almost always been woven to shape or constructed from complete parts united in the final garment without recourse to cutting the cloth. This ancient textile, which could have had many other pieces sewn alongside…

This brocaded cloth features a supernatural pelican-man. Still bright after over five hundred years, scarlet highlights the standing figure’s face and the many little pelicans that sit on his arms and emerge magically from/as his body. The two…

Though this is only a small portion of the original composition, even in this fragmentary state the amount of thread that floats over the surface of the ground cloth is amazing. The cloth is the greenish brown that is now functioning only as the…

Although this piece is also only part of a larger composition, nevertheless it is very revealing. Here the intentional color surprise is the bright pink background for the yellow bird toward the top right corner. No other instance of such a color is…

This tiny bit of a very fine tapestry is all that is left from a Tiwanaku-style textile dating to around 600 AD. It features a human arm and hand grasping some kind of a staff, facing right. It was once connected to a very complex body with wings and…

A fragment of a Wari tapestry tunic was originally along the side seam of a four-foot square garment. However, even this small fragment illustrates several important concepts and aesthetic choices made over 1300 years ago in the Andes. The…