Panel
1000-1476
Medium
Cotton, plain weave; painted
Dimensions
199.1 × 51.8 cm (78 3/8 × 20 3/8 in.)
Classification
textile
Department
Textiles
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
22338
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
The Chancay culture thrived in several adjacent costal valleys in northern Peru from about 1000 to 1450. The painted textiles on view here demonstrate some of the diverse techniques Chancay artists employed. The works are woven from cotton cultivated on the Pacific coast and painted freehsnd. While the style of the painting varies, the motifs are consistent and include birds, felines, and a standing human-like figure wearing a crescent-shaped headdress, its arms raised. The significance of this ...
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...