Object Name: Panel with crowned figure

Culture: Chancay Culture

Place of Origin: Central Coast of Peru

Date/Era: Late Intermediate Period, 1150-1450 CE

Dimensions: 94 x 93 cm

Medium/Materials: Cotton warp and weft with yellow and orange pigments and possible shellfish purple dye; gauze patterend with weft wrapping and knotting

Credit Line: Fowler Museum at UCLA, Gift of the May Company Department Stores.

Accession Number: X65.7603

Two four-selvaged panels are seamed in the middle. The selvages are preserved.

This sheer and flexible textile, created using the complex technique of patterned gauze weave with knotting, may have served as a ceremonial wrapping cloth. A figure is depicted within the sheer cloth, repeated horizontally and vertically, inscribed within a stepped enclosure (see photograph of object detail). He wears a short tunic and a pointed and elongated crown and has upturned five-fingered hands or paws.

Source: Elena Phipps, The Peruvian Four-Selvaged Cloth. Ancient Threads / New Directions. Fowler Museum Textile Series, No. 12, Los Angeles, 2013