Pre-Columbian, South Coast Peru, Nazca culture, ca. 100 to 300 CE. A fine pair of handwoven textile wrist cuffs, each comprised of red, green, yellow, blue, and white alpaca or llama wool fibers with several wooden reeds lined side-by-side. Each display a geometric design of 2 lozenge motifs divided into 2 or 4 sections and surrounded by 4 bands of repeated blue and white squares. The shorter ends of each cuff are lined with animal hide to protect the wearer's skin, while white straps protrude from the longer edges, allowing the bands to be strapped to one's forearms. Size (both about the same): 12" L x 8.5" W (30.5 cm x 21.6 cm); (backing): 37" L x 28.7" W (94 cm x 72.9 cm)

Andean textile art began as early as the third millennium BCE and continued to be a medium of artistic expression as well as a medium used for communicating cultural information - religious, social, and political - for thousands of years. Interestingly, in Peru, fabric art preceded ceramics by more than a thousand years. Designs could be painted or embroidered onto or woven into the fabric, as we see in this example.

Provenance: private Hawaii, USA collection, 1995 to 2010; ex-private Hans Juergen Westermann collection, Germany, acquired from the 1950s to 1960s

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#172817

Losses to animal hide and some losses to fiber on peripheries. Both have some fraying. Otherwise, both are excellent with nice remaining pigments. Both sewn to modern black cloth for display.