Pre-Columbian Chuquibamba Banner, Peru 1000-1400 AD Ex Guillot-Muñoz

Pre-Columbian ornamental banner with fringes composed of warriors/divinities holding figures in their hands, surrounded by geometric frets. Two-headed birds in alternating colors decorate the top and bottom of the banner. This one-of-a-kind tapestry has preserved its vibrant original colors and fibres. Professionally cleaned. Provenance: Private European Collection Textiles from elite Chimu tombs include elaborate gauzes, embroidery, painted plain weave and tapestry, and three-dimensional fibre sculptures. Among others, shades of yellow and brown, scarlet, white, lavender-blue and olive green were the colors used. Birds and a deity wearing a crescent-like headdress have been the most popular decorative motifs. Many Chimu textiles...

Complete and magnificent Chimu Pre-Columbian Tapestry with 21 multicolor Royal attendants and fringe. No restoration, professionally cleaned. Overal...

An antique pre-Columbia textile panel from Chancay culture in Central coast of nowadays Peru. Chancay culture thrived in the late Intermediate period/ late Horizon circa AD. 1000-1470. The panel appears to be an intact shawl or head scarf, indicated by the overall integrity with the finished edges. It is a gauze-like linen/cotton open-square woven panel with supplemental embroidered horizontal bands that alternate between hooked diamond motifs and silhouettes of perched seabirds, one of the most favored animal forms in Chancay art. The color is quite vibrant with red contrasted by two shades of yellow on a darker brown background. The scarf such as this is thought to be associated with ceremonies and magic realm of death and burial practice. The textile is displayed on a dark line background under a newly made acrylic shadow box. Reference: For reading on the bird motifs in Chancay textile art, see page 141-183 of the book "Ancient...

A large Nazca-Wari woven textile panel known as Llika or Awayo (shawl) from Ica Valley on the south coast of nowadays Peru. Professionally mounted and conversed on a linen-backed wood frame and presented in an acrylic shadow box. Shawls with this step design were identified as made from the period of 700 to 1100 AD during the transitional period when Nazca went under the expanded rule of the Wari empire. The textile was finely woven from a camelid fiber dyed with natural pigments. The work strikes the viewer immediately with its unexpected modernity. The simple, bold and repetitive geometry with the scintillating color blocks created a lyrical visual rhythm and could easily mistake it as an abstract art from the 20th century. The step design was one of the unusual abstract motifs used by the pre-Columbian weavers from Nazca, who created some of the most mysterious and soul-stirring work with a minimalism aesthetic that was rarely seen in any other ancient textile art. Considering that the artists were completely isolated without the influences of other cultures, their intrinsic creativity and artistic vision are even more impressive. Provenance: From the collection of Lee M...