Headcloth Fragment
1000-1476
Medium
Cotton, gauze weave; embroidered with cotton in simple looping stitch
Dimensions
32.4 × 39.4 cm (12 3/4 × 15 1/2 in.)
Classification
textile
Department
Textiles
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
80403
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
This extraordinary fragment from a headcloth, with its fineness of thread and complex construction, exemplifies Chancay gauze weaving. In Chancay culture, gauze weave relates to the tradition of coastal fishing, as the art form likely grew out of techniques associated with the making of fishing nets. This fragment displays two feline heads linked to the same body. Peru is home to a variety of wild cats, including the jaguar, puma, and pampas cat. These predatory felines were feared as well as wo...
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...