1997.2.50

Collection type

Object

Description

Woman's rectangular shawl

Long description

Woman's rectangular shawl, made from two complete textiles stitched together edge to edge, with their terminal areas at opposite ends of the garment. One textile is considerably wider than the other. Each has a central ground in warp-faced plain weave, with alternate groups of Z2S and S2Z spun warps in different shades of dark brown, giving a subtle striped herringbone effect. The ground of each piece is bordered with two broad bands of complementary warp decoration: diamond motifs (which may represent the sun, Inti (Flores Ochoa & Fries 1989:76-77)) in pink, purple and white (at the centre of the shawl) and dark green and red (towards the edges). The outer borders of the shawl are in warp-faced plain weave, again with alternate groups of Z2S and S2Z spun warps, in shades of red. The weft is dark brown. The two halves of the shawl are sewn together with an embroidery stitch in pink, brown, purple, red, white and yellow. Yellow edge-binding (probably commercial) was formerly stitched around the shawl; a length of this remains on one side, and its former presence is indicated by running stitches on all four sides. In some areas the use of lluq'i (backward spun) yarn has a protective function. According to Meisch (1997:41, 125, cat. no. 200) its use in the outer borders of a garment allows the piece to lie flat; Flores Ochoa & Fries (1989: 76) state that in Q'ero it is used to make textiles water resistant. Warp spin: Z2S, S2Z; weft: Z2S; warp count 95 epi (38/cm); weft count 26 ppi (10/cm).

Geographical reference

Peru

Latin America and the Caribbean > South America > Peru

Cuzco Dept Q'ero

Cultural groups

Quechua

Person

Field collector Robin Woodhouse

PRM source Robin Woodhouse

PRM source Paula Woodhouse

Date / Period

Date made: Before 1975

Date collected

1974 - 1975

Acquisition information

Donated: 1996

Materials and processes

Material Alpaca Wool Camelid Textile Animal, Process Woven, Process Stitched

Dimensions

Width 655 mm, Length 740 mm

Object numbers

Accession number: 1997.2.50 Other numbers: L4

Research and responses

For a list of the works consulted by Linda Mowat while cataloguing this collection, see RDF. [JC 26 8 2013]

Search terms: Clothing, Shawl