Headcloth
1000-1476
Medium
Cotton, plain weave; tie dyed
Dimensions
96.5 × 101.6 cm (38 × 40 in.)
Classification
textile
Department
Textiles
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
152937
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Although this headcloth looks like a gauze from afar, it is actually a much simpler plain weave. Rather than invest time in weaving the sheer fabric, its maker focused on creating its circular patterns by tying off small sections of the cotton cloth and dyeing it. The technique is similar to making a modern tie-dyed T-shirt but executed at a much smaller scale. Chancay weavers on the coast likely inherited this technique from their ancestors in the Andean highlands, weavers of the Wari Empire, w...
About the Artist
Chancay
The Chancay were a pre-Columbian culture that flourished along the central coast of Peru, in the valleys of the Huaura, Chancay, Chillón, and surrounding rivers, from approximately 1000 to 1470 CE. Emerging after the decline of the Wari civilization, the Chancay developed a distinctive artistic identity that set them apart from their Andean contemporaries, one defined above all by extraordinary ma...