**Originally Listed At $4000**
Pre-Columbian, central highlands of Peru, Inca culture, ca. 1350 to 1500 CE. A massive textile tunic composed of two broad camelid fiber panels that are dyed in an attractive crimson hue. The seam running down the middle is sewn together except in the center where a slit-form opening is situated through which one would place their head. Decorating the tunic panels are columns of beige, yellow, white, and dark blue rectangles with petite nodules protruding from the ends, and a column of trapezoidal forms is mirrored on one side. Each corner is adorned with a thick tassel embellished with a striated, ladder-form bar of beige thread. Mounted against a museum-quality display panel. Size (tunic without tassels): 60.375" W x 56.3" H (153.4 cm x 143 cm); (display panel): 77" W x 73.1" H (195.6 cm x 185.7 cm)
Weaving was among the Incas' greatest arts. They used cotton as well as soft wool of the alpaca and the vicuna, the smallest camelid of the Americas. Inca tunics, known as 'unku' in the Quechua language, are masterworks of weaving made by skilled artisans using looms as wide as the tunics themselves. Tunics were attire for elite men, and their ownership was restricted by the rigidly hierarchical Inca state. Many were given as gifts by the emperor to reward military service or some other form of loyalty. The preservation of Andean textiles is a product of both the dry desert climate of the area and traditional burial practices whereby bodies of the deceased were wrapped in several layers of cloth to make mummy bundles. This is a rare, complete, well preserved example.
Provenance: ex-private C. Webster collection, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, acquired before 2000; ex-Mark Winter collection
All items legal to buy/sell under U.S. Statute covering cultural patrimony Code 2600, CHAPTER 14, and are guaranteed to be as described or your money back.
A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany all winning bids.
PLEASE NOTE: Due to recent increases of shipments being seized by Australian customs (even for items with pre-UNESCO provenance), we will no longer ship most Antiquities and ancient Chinese art to Australia. For categories of items that are acceptable to ship to Australia, please contact us directly or work with your local customs brokerage firm. #155850
Condition
Repairs to several areas with red thread, with a few larger areas backed with modern red fabric for presentation purposes. Light fraying to some interior, peripheral, and tassel threads, with minor fading and staining to color in scattered areas, and light creasing. Great remains of geometric motifs and colors throughout.