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Man's mantle and two border fragments
Peruvian (Paracas)
Early Intermediate Period, possibly Phase 1B
A.D. 50–100
Object Place: Peru, South Coast
Medium/Technique
Wool (camelid fiber) plain weave, embroidered with wool (camelid fiber)
Dimensions
Overall (a): 101 x 244.3 cm (39 3/4 x 96 3/16 in.)
Credit Line
Denman Waldo Ross Collection
Accession Number16.34a-c
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsAmericas, Fashion and Textiles
ClassificationsCostumes
DescriptionBlack wool ground with design worked in wool of bird impersonators with elaborate wings, fringed capes, headdresses, and snakes, carrying ceremonial staffs and trophy heads. The colors (crimson, pink, blue, dark green, yellow and grayish green) are used in four different combinations of color in the figures. Unfinished rectangles in each corner show similar figures on an embroidered golden brown ground.
ProvenanceOctober, 1915, sold by Enrique Mestanza, Pisco, Peru, to Julio C. Tello, Francisco Graña Reyes, and Gonzalo Carbajal, Lima [see note 1]; 1915/1916, sold by Julio Tello to Denman Waldo Ross (b. 1853 - d. 1935), Cambridge, MA [see note 2]; 1916, gift of Denman Waldo Ross to the MFA. (Accession Date: February 3, 1916)
NOTES:
[1] On the sale of the Mestanza collection, see Anne Paul, ed., Paracas: Art and Architecture (Iowa City, 1991), pp. 36-38 and Richard Daggett, A Tello-Centric History of Peruvian Archaeology part 2, pp. 360, 386-387. [2] Ross purchased a number of textiles and fragments from Tello (probably acting for Carbajal) between December 27, 1915 and January 8, 1916. When they were accessioned by the MFA (accession nos. 16.30-16.42), they were mistakenly believed to have been found by Tello himself "[in a cemetery] three or four miles south of Pisco."
NOTES:
[1] On the sale of the Mestanza collection, see Anne Paul, ed., Paracas: Art and Architecture (Iowa City, 1991), pp. 36-38 and Richard Daggett, A Tello-Centric History of Peruvian Archaeology part 2, pp. 360, 386-387. [2] Ross purchased a number of textiles and fragments from Tello (probably acting for Carbajal) between December 27, 1915 and January 8, 1916. When they were accessioned by the MFA (accession nos. 16.30-16.42), they were mistakenly believed to have been found by Tello himself "[in a cemetery] three or four miles south of Pisco."