Pre-Columbian, South Coast Peru, Paracas culture, ca. 500 to 300 BCE. A fabulous and sizable textile fragment composed of tightly woven camelid (alpaca or llama wool fibers) in hues of crimson, fuchsia, citrine, espresso, tangerine, and midnight-blue. The broad panel depicts several abstract flying shamans, each with a disembodied head and a sinuous body, with some boasting arching rabbit-like ears, and many surrounded by abstract feline figures. The shamanic heads feature diamond-shaped eyes, diagonal stripes on the cheeks indicative of scarification - or perhaps whiskers based on the feline motif - and thin lips curled into slight smiles. Above the dense figurative display is a register of fringe in red, yellow, and dark-blue hues. A fabulous and expressive example of textile artistry from the ancient Paracas! Mounted atop a museum-quality display fabric. Size (textile): 46.1" L x 9.7" W (117.1 cm x 24.6 cm); size (display fabric): 65.5" L x 26.5" W (166.4 cm x 67.3 cm).
Little is known about the Paracas people, and what little we do know comes from a 1920s archaeological excavation of the Paracas Cavernas, shaft tombs containing multiple burials, many of which contained ceramic vessels, probably for holding offerings or provisioning the dead in the afterlife. The iconography of the Paracas people is linear and stylistic, based on formal figures whose species, when zoomorphic, often cannot be identified. Motifs on their textiles mirror those of their ceramics that they used to wrap their dead and probably represent gods or mythical figures of power.
Provenance: private Hawaii, USA collection; ex-private Hans Juergen Westermann collection, Germany, 1950 to 1960s
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#148285
Condition
Figurative fragment and fringe are sewn atop a modern orange-hued fabric panel for stability. Losses to some interior and peripheral areas as shown. Minor loosening to some interior and peripheral fibers, and light creasing. Iconography and original coloration are still visible.