© Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University

ClassificationsArt of the Americas

Border Fragment with Bird Motif

Place CreatedPeru, South America

CultureChancay

PeriodLate Intermediate

Dateca. 1000-1470 CE

MediumCotton, camelid fiber

Credit LineAnonymous gift

Dimensions14 1/2 x 1 3/8 in. (36.8 x 3.5 cm)

Object number2003.040.030

Label TextThis fragmentary band, featuring abstract birds repeated in zigzag-bordered diagonals, demonstrates the range of Andean weavers' imagination, design sense, and dyeing capabilities. Its bird motifs are all made up of a few straight lines, capturing in shorthand the large beaks, round eyes, wings, and tails of birds in flight. All the birds face the viewers' left. However, this potential monotony is decidedly sidestepped by the selection of colors as this band features a remarkably bright pink (made from the dried ground bodies of cochineal beetles), and a strong light orange (the result of natural plant dyes). Cochineal is the world's most intense and long-lasting natural red dye, as evidenced by how strong it appears in this band after a thousand years.
Exhibition HistoryMCCM Permanent Collection Gallery, Textile Rotation, September 2004 - March 2005
Published ReferencesMCCM Newsletter, September - November 2003.

ProvenanceEx private collection, United States.

Status

Not on view

Collections