Panel
Chancay (Central coast, Peru)
1000-1476
- Medium
- Cotton, plain weave; painted
- Classification
- Textile
- Dimensions
- 199.1 × 51.8 cm (78 3/8 × 20 3/8 in.)
- Culture
- Peru
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Textiles
- Credit line
- Gift of Bruce J. Graham
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
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 individual is unknown—it may represent a supernatural being or human ruler—but the painted scenes often include depictions of waves, suggesting the landscape in which these textiles originated. (displayed with 2017.108)
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
