Panel
Lambayeque (North coast, Peru)
1000-1476
- Medium
- Cotton and wool (camelid), slit tapestry weave with eccentric and wrapping outlining wefts and uncut weft loop pile; embroidered with wool (camelid) in couching stitch; slit tapestry weave with eccentric wefts, finished with extended weft…
- Classification
- Textile
- Dimensions
- 62.6 × 26.7 cm (24 5/8 × 10 1/2 in.)
- Culture
- Peru
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Textiles
- Credit line
- Kate S. Buckingham Endowment
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
For this colorful panel, two figures stand in frontal view. They wear large crescent headdresses and hold staffs; they also are shown with prominent noses and distinctive ear ornaments. The combination of these features and regalia is characteristic of the "Sicán Lord," a figure believed to represent the humanized version of Naymlap, a legendary ancestral lord in the Lambayeque region who was said to have evaded death by growing wings and flying away. The sides and bottom borders of this panel are filled with round motifs—rendered using a variety of color combinations—that may represent bundles of gathered cotton or cotton bolls.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
