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)
Date
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Richard Townsend with Elizabeth Pope, Indian Art of the Americas at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago with Yale University Press, 2016), 357, 332.
Art Institute of Chicago, Department of African and Amerindian Art, May 12- August 7, 1987.
Art Institute of Chicago, Elizabeth F. Cheney and Agnes Allerton Textile Galleries, Mexican, Central, and South American Textiles: A Living Legacy, Oct. 28, 1992-Jan. 17, 1993.
Art Institute of Chicago, Department of African and Amerindian Art, March 18- July 30, 1997.
Art Institute of Chicago, Department of African and Amerindian Art, January 17- May 30, 2002.
Art Institute of Chicago, Gallery 136, Department of African and Amerindian Art, September 23, 2014- December 16, 2014.
Art Institute of Chicago, Gallery 136, Department of African and Amerindian Art, June 7, 2018- March 6, 2019.
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