cloth
- Museum number
- Af1956,27.225
- Description
-
Cloth (Akwete woman's weave): a single width of hand-woven imported European machine cotton. The ground colour of both warp and weft is of dark blue. The patterning uses supplementary weft thread of four colours: white, light blue, yellow, and red (the last two sometimes combined to create a mottled thread) . These are used to create five bands of pattern, divided by lines of white and red. The warp ends have been twisted into a fringe.
- Production date
- 1908 (before)
- Dimensions
-
Length: 206 centimetres (including fringe)
-
Width: 114.50 centimetres
- Curator's comments
-
Description from William Fagg, ‘The Webster Plass collection of African Art, an illustrated catalogue’, British Museum 1953, cat.80.
Cotton cloth woven on a broad woman’s loom and dyed indigo, with geometrical patterns (including some derived from human or animal forms) embroidered in red, yellow, green and white.
Provenance: Sir M R Menendez.
-
This very fine example of Akwete weaving given by Mrs Plass can be dated before 1908 because of its provenance from the Menendez collection. It therefore serves as a reference point for dating early Akwete cloths. It fits stylistically with other early examples in the BM such as the group in the Beving collection (see Af1934,0307.104 to 126) and the cloth from the Church Missionary Society (Af1966,01.31).
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
1995, London, Barbican Art Gallery, The Art of African Textiles
- Acquisition date
- 1956
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Af1956,27.225
