Chile, Arica Small Loincloth
The lion cloth is comprised of 32 individually wrapped strands of vicuna. The design of the Andean cross appears when the strands are aligned. A similar small mens loincloth is illustrated in Arica Diez Mil Anos, Museo Chileno (1985: 57).
Media: Textile
Dimensions: Height: 12" x Width: 14"
$6,500
M8063
Peru, Chancay Fringed Tapestry Border with Cats and Birds
This was likely the border of a tunic and was made as two loom widths sewn together with an additional fringe sewn horizontally. The design of cats and birds alternating in angled bands is bordered above and below with rows of additional small birds. It is unusual to see such red and gold highlights dyed on cotton.
Media: Textile
Dimensions: Width: 37" Height: 9"
$2,200
94277
Peru, Chancay Painted Cotton Panel with Four Abstract Figures and Symbols
The cotton panel is painted in blue, tan and orange. The drawing can be interpreted as 3 woven panels or tunics with fringes, each decorated with different abstract designs. On each side of the central panel are two abstract creatures with curly tails on an orange ground.
Media: Textile
Dimensions: Length: 46" x Width: 23"
$7,500
n6056h
Peru, Chancay stamped decorated woven panel
The decoration is a combination of resist dying and then stamped design. There are over 7 different motifs all arranged in diagonal patterns.
Media: Textile
Dimensions: Length: 15'(180") x Width: 4'(48")
$15,000
N2027
Peru, Chimu Tapestry Panel with 18 Cacti
The panel is arranged with three rows of cacti, probably the San Pedro cactus species. The San Pedro is also eaten as psychoactive fruit and is shaped like a star or flower when sliced. This panel illustrates three rows of plants, each with a bird eating the fruit. The rows of cacti are bordered by double rows of stylized crowned Chimu crowned.
This panel was cut from a larger weaving. The fringe is authentic, coming from the original weaving, but was re-attached. The panel is mounted in a Plexiglas box. The framer used an adhesive to attach the weaving to the ivory cotton ground; it should not be removed from the stretcher.
Formerly in a New York private collection prior to 1979.
Media: Textile
Dimensions: Height: 22" x Width: 23"
$3,250
n9042
Peru, Chimu Tapestry Shirt with Pelican Narrative
This is a complete tapestry woven shirt with sleeves constructed of cotton warps and camelid wefts in red, brown, olive and white on an ochre ground. It depicts a mythical marine narrative with two pelicans carrying a litter bearing a trophy head in the form of a skate with a face. Litters were considered a prestigious mode of transportation on the North coast. The presence of this image within the narrative reinforces the importance of the individual who wore this shirt. There is a pelican with a crescent headdress on top of each litter. Each of the four panels displays the same scene in reverse colors. This shirt is illustrated in Rowe, Ann, "Costumes and Featherwork of the Lords of Chimor" published by The Textile Museum, 1984, fig 103. Formally in the collection of the Southwest Museum in California.
Media: Textile
Dimensions: Width 47-1/2" x Length 19-1/2"
Price Upon Request
96127
Peru, Colorful Chancay Gauze with Abstract Faces
This is a very unusual gauze in blue, red, and saffron colors. It is woven in two panels and depicts three bands of large abstract faces, bordered by step clefs. In the opposite orientation the faces appear as skates and frogs.
Media: Textile
Dimensions: Length: 27" x Width: 26"
$7,000
n6053h
Zaire, Dekese (Kuba Kingdom) Raffia Panel with X-shaped Motif
Woven palm-leaf fiber panel embroidered with four variations on the same V-shaped motif which intersect to form a large “X.” The panel was embroidery cut to form a pile surface, resembling velvet. This panel was brought back by one of the members of H.M. Stanley's famous expedition to Central Africa in the late 1800's.
Media: Textile
Dimensions: Length 23.5" x Width 23.5"
$450
M4089
Peru, Early Nazca/Late Wari Tie- Dye Patchwork Rectangular Bag
This tie dye rectangular bag with discontinuous interlocking patchwork was probably used for carrying feathers. The bag was made from surplus squares left over from a larger mantle, utilizing the scaffold technique. Collected by Gunnolf Bjorkman who worked in Lima in the 1960's and settled in Buenos Aires.
Media: Textile
Dimensions: Length: 26" x Width: 4 1/2 in.
$7,250
91265
Peru, Early Nazca/Sihuas Feather Tunic With the Eight Pointed Star On an Orange Ground
This tunic with an eight-pointed star motif, also referred to as the Radiant Sun, is similar to other published tunics. The front part is a complete star with assorted color blocks of blue feathers. The back of the tunic has only two blue stripes on an orange ground with a fringe of turquoise macaw tail feathers. The blue feathers do not contain blue pigment, but instead are natural prisms which brightly reflect the color of the sky. I believe that all the feathers are from the Scarlet, Yellow, and Blue Macaws. Tunics with similar motifs are illustrated in TEXTILE ART OF PERU, 1989, L.L. Editores, Lima. pages145,-147 & 163. Usually tunics with an eight-pointed star motif are from the Nazca region, from the South coast of Peru. This tunic was found in the Sihuas region near the city of Arequipa and predates the Nazca by 500 years. The backing fabric is fragile and needs proper conservation.
Media: Textile
Dimensions: Length 56" x Width 35" (142cm X 88.9cm)
•SOLD
N1028
Peru, Huarmay Tapestry Border to a Poncho with Three Warriors
This classic Huarmay style tapestry is crafted in the classic Huarmay colors of ivory, blue, and red with black outlines. Each warrior wears different colors, and each holds a tumi in his left hand and wears an elaborate headdress with two long, forward-tilting plumes. Separating the warriors are blocks of ivory with three abstract birds on a diagonal. Along the bottom edge is a repeating classic step volute line in blue with a white outline. The Huarmay culture thrived during the Late Moche Period on the most Southern of the fourteen Moche valleys, and were influenced by the Wari. Mounted, in a Plexiglas box. Minor losses to the ivory central panel. Formerly in a New York private collection prior to 1979.
Media: Textile
Dimensions: Width: 48" x Height: 6 1/2"
$8,500
n9040
Chile, Inca Faja Bolsa (Bag Belt)
This Faja Bolsa has extremely good colors and presevation, in blue, red and white. geometric striped design. The belt was worn around the waist and over a tunic. As tunics have not pockets, the bag belt allowed the wearer to store items from coca leaves to corn, something like a Money Belt is used for today. A similar example is found in "Arica, Diez mil Anos", Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, page 80, no. 180 & 181. Woven of alpaca wools. Weavings from Pica, Chile are usually in excellent condition with bright colors.
Media: Textile
Dimensions: Width: 6 x Length:. 17 � in.
$2,750
90247
Chile, Inca feather shaman's mask with feather Nose appendages
This mask was worn by shaman to create an owl like impression. It is constructed by threading the individual duck feather quills. Figurative pottery images have been seen wearing this type of face mask. Similar masks are illustrated in ARICA 10,000 YEARS. Another example is illustrated in "Identity and Prestige in the Andes" pg 52.
Media: Textile
Dimensions: H 6 1/2" x W. 7"
$1,800
88033B
Chile, Inca fez style hat with step design in brown, gold, white and pink and feather plume
A fez style hat was placed as the final adornament on the Inca mummy bundles of Pica, Chile. They were not made anywhere else in all of the Inca Empire. They were made by a coil method wrapping different colored wool yarns around the coils to acheive the quartered step pattern. A similar example is illustrated in Arica Diez Mil Anos
Media: Textile
Dimensions: H. 4 1/4 in.hat only H. with feathers 9"
$5,500
91362
Peru, Inca/Ica Tapestry Borders to a Tunic depicting creatures in profile holding a bird
A very finely woven tapestry work in alternating color arrangements on tan and red grounds. The creature is wearing an upside down tunic on his head with a early Inca motif of checkerboard pattern. Color is used to create hidden images.
Media: Textile
Dimensions: Length 24 1/2" x Width 3 1/4" framed / 23" x 2 1/4" unmounted
$4,850
M3136
Peru, Knotted Textile Fringe with Colorful Abstract Motif
This knotted fringe is distinguished by its brilliant colors and abstract "z" motif repeated along the band. It was not woven on a loom but instead was created by a method referred to as "tubular looping." Looping is a single-element technique in which the free end and full length of the yarn are pulled through previous work at the edge of the fabric to form each new loop. Looping predates the domestication of fiber-bearing plants and animals and the invention of weaving in the Americas and possibly Eurasia. The choice of color combinations creates a vibrating impact.
Media: Textile
Dimensions: Length: 61 inches; Width: 2 inches
$3,000
91105
Peru, Large fragment to a Wari tunic in Unusual Colors with Abstract Monkey Faces
The fragment consists of two large sections that join, making it almost 60 inches in length. The design is of opposing monkeys in profile. Both profile monkey faces also combine to create a third, larger monkey face in two colors. The monkey’s tail turns into a step fret motif, typical of Wari tunics. The thread count is high, at around 120 per inch. The warps are of cotton and the wefts are of fine alpaca. Cotton warps suggests that the tunic was woven on the coast.
Media: Textile
Dimensions: Overall length is 60" x Width of 20"
Section A Length: 30" x Width: 20"
Section B Length: 30" x Width: 20'
$6,950
n7018
Chile, Mapuche Horse Blanket
The Mapuche Indians of southern Chile were famous for their horseback riding ability. They were the first Americans to learn how to ride horses in the New World. The slit in their tunics opened allowing them to spread their legs over the horse and these were the first true ponchos in the New World. A long pile colorful wool ceremonial horse blanket, which is very rare. A similar one is illustrated in "Colores de America" on the cover.
Media: Textile
Dimensions: Width 34" Height 48"
$6,500
97166
Peru, Miniature Tunic with Fish Appliques
This rare small tunic was made for a child or perhaps a doll. The silver fish are individually crafted - cutout with repousse details. The fish are attached with the original thread, through holes in the fish, and are applied to both the front and back of the tunic. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York possesses a similar miniature tunic, pair of shoes, and coca bag, all made in the same style using textiles with square-shaped silver appliques. These items, along with a larger textile, are illustrated in the Textile Museum's publication Costumes and Featherwork of the Lords of Chimor, figs. 148, 167,168.
Media: Textile
Dimensions: Width: 7" x Length: 13 1/2"
$2,500
91201A
Peru, Nazca Border with 21 Abstract Feline Deities
A Nazca band decorated with seven abstract feline deities alternating in colors blue, yellow and maroon on red ground. The deities face upward, with hind legs and tails outlined in black. When the felines are rotates 90 degrees, they appear to be worms. A similar image is illustrated in Ancient Peruvian Textiles from the Collection of the Textile Museum, plate 17.
Media: Textile
Dimensions: Length: 20" x Width: 7"
$1,800
94178a
Peru, Nazca kilim-style border to tunic with alternating zig zags
The zig-zags on this border are separated by bold triangular fields with ivory, blue and orange on brown ground. This weaving is one of the vertical side borders to the tunic.
Media: Textile
Dimensions: Length 83" x Width 14 1/2"
$11,500
91091
Peru, Paracas Embroidered Section with 5 Condors
This embroidery textile is decorated with five mythical birds of prey in red, green, orange, and dark blue on plain cotton. In front of each large bird is a miniature bird in a contrasting color. This textile is illustrated in ANCIENT PERUVIAN TEXTILES by Ferdinand Anton, 1984, in plate 52. Ferdinand Anton Collection prior to 1980. Excellent color, with slight unraveling at the edges.
Pressure mounted in a Plexiglas frame.
Period: Peru, Paracas, South Coast, c. 500 - 200 BC
Media: Textile
Dimensions: Length:2 1/4" x Height: 7 1/2 "
$2,800
92071
Peru, Paracas Miniature Knitted Fringe or Neck Opening with Double-Headed Worms
Eleven finely knitted colorful segments depicting double-headed worms with curled tails in alternating colors. Below each worm is a small tab with an even smaller creature nested within. Acquired from the estate of Anton Roeckl in Germany prior to 1970.
Media: Textile
Dimensions: Length: 6 3/4 inches
$2,800
96165
Peru, Paracas Necropolis Embroidered Corner Border with Eight Large Feline Figures and 100 Secondary Figures
This symbolically rich Linear style Paracas mantle border features a group of magnificent animal deities, ranging from ferocious to benevolent. The eight main deities are feline Oculate Beings with exaggerated eyes, alternating in orientation, each with a tongue terminating in a serpent's head. Oculate Beings in Andean art often resemble the Pampas cat, Leopardus pajeros - a distinctive species of wild cat with unusually large eyes found along the Pacific coast of South America. Inside each of the Oculate Beings' torso is a double-headed condor, and a variety of small, colorful, attendant felines are embroidered around the perimeter of the design.
The Oculate Being with a smaller animal nested inside of it is a classic Andean shamanic trope that signifies death, rebirth, and transformation. Rather than representing the literal birth of an individual animal, these chimeric creatures, skeletal in form, nested inside the abdomens of the larger Oculate Beings represent a mythical cosmology of reverence rebirth and transformation.
The Paracas cosmology is also present in the abstract structure of the composition, which suggests the ambiguous boundaries between the earthly realm and the spiritual world. South American shamans are known to fast and chant in preparation for a voyage into the spiritual world. The lack of perspective and the absence of recognizable landscape features in the design of this textile signifies an intermediary zone outside the normal bounds of space and time, accessible only to shamans and spirit animals who can traverse the boundaries between worlds.
Red and pink threads of extremely similar hue were intentionally selected by the Paracas artisans to create an optical illusion that causes the smaller figures to appear to be emerging from the composition over time. This type of optical illusion using color only to create the sensation of forms emerging over time was also used in the abstract paintings of Modernist Ad Reinhardt.
Expert knowledge of color theory was used to select perfectly contrasting colors, creating an optical illusion in which some of the deities appear to vibrate, while others appear to merge into a unifying field of color. With prolonged observation, the scene in the textile appears to oscillate, and the deities appear to be moving. The changing imagery and perceptual illusion of motion created through use of compositional elements alone shares qualities with paintings of some of the greatest early 20th Century Modernists, including painter Wassily Kandinsky.
Kandinsky believed that each color had a spiritual vibrational property aside from its’ electromagnetic wavelength, and that colors could profoundly affect the human spirit. Kandinsky wrote about these concepts in his 1911 treatise, Concerning the Spiritual in Art. Also see Anne Paul's PARACAS RITUAL ATTIRE: Symbols of Authority in Ancient Peru, University of Oklahoma Press, 1990. p. 170. Professionally conserved and pressure mounted in a Plexiglas frame. Acquired by David Bernstein in 2003.
Period: Peru, Paracas, Ocucaje-South Coast , 300 - 200 BC
Media: Textile
Dimensions: Length 45" x Width 9 3/4"
$39,500
M4003
Chile, Pre-Inca Storage Bag from Arica, Chile
This large striped bag is decorated with a series of thin and broad vertical stripes in brilliant hues of red, green, tan, brown and white. The weaving was opened along the vertical sewn sides and is in excellent condition indicating that it was woven for ritual tribute rather than used in everyday life. These long, narrow bags are referred to as talegas. A group of talegas is catalogued in ARICA: 10,000 YEARS, ref # 195-199. Acquired in 1995 from Eduardo Aldunate, Santiago, Chile prior to the 1980s. Weaving Technique: plain weave. Professionally mounted on a stretcher.
Media: Textile
Dimensions: Length 29" x Width 13"
$5,800
95107
Peru, Proto-Nazca "Cabildo" Sampler with Three Figures in Gold and Red
This sampler is embroidered with abstract creatures with their hands held upwards. The sampler is embroidered with camelid dyed fiber in red, green and gold on a fine woven white cotton ground. The two figures at opposite ends have arms and legs with fancy appendages at the waist and an abstract face on top of each head. Samplers were used by the Paracas and Early Nasca to plan out designs for large textiles. The central figure appeas to be a shaman with a large head wearing a crown with three appendages on each side embroidered in gold. Nested inside the central figure is secondary figure embroidered in red, depicted upside down as if it is falling. The sampler is embellished with 42 individual connected step-volute patterns in red, green, gold and brown. In addition, there are five X's interspersed in the design. The panel is complete, in good condition, with all sides selvaged, and professionally lined. There are 3 small holes and 7 very small holes. Similar samplers are discussed and illustrated in "Early Nazca Needlework" by Alan Sawyer.
Period: Peru, Paracas, Ocucaje-South Coast , 300 - 200 BC
Media: Textile
Dimensions: Length: 63" x Width: 22"
$6,500
93129
Peru, Sihuas Tapestry Panel Depicting a Sun Face Deity Holding a Staff in Each Hand
The panel depicts an elaborate Sun Face Deity holding fancy staffs with Puma heads in profile. The Deity wears a colorful headdress and an unusual chest decoration. Beneath the deity is a litter held by four attendants. In the center of the litter is a self-referential depiction of a tunic. Underneath the litter are two staff bearers that appear in front of the litter. On each side is a column of four unique kneeling anthropomorphized attendants with bird-like characteristics. Among the attendants are two figures with human faces who are blowing conch trumpets. A similar, less complicated example is illustrated in TIWANAKU: ANCESTORS OF THE INKA by Maragaret Young-Sanchez, fig. 1.9. Condition: There are losses and repairs throughout.
Media: Textile
Dimensions: Height: 20" x Width: 29"
$18,000
N6012
Peru, Two Female Chancay Dolls Each
The female tapestry faces are divided into three sections while those of the males are woven in two sections. One holds a wad of unspun cotton while the other holds a spindle with brown cotton strapped around it. Each has a witch’s veil covering the back of the head. Ex collection Justin and Barbara Kerr, prior to 1970.
Media: Textile
Dimensions: Height: 10 1/4" x Width of Face: 4 1/4"
$8,500
n7013
