Situated in the Indian Ocean, Madagascar represents a unique cultural crossroads of African and Indonesian heritage. This brilliantly hued and gorgeously patterned work captures the finest qualities of the island's most distinctive form of expression, the silk textiles produced by Merina highlanders since precolonial times.

Merina weavers use a technique known as akotyfahna, produced on a horizontal, fixed heddle loom with a continuous weft and warp. A second heddle produces supplementary floating-weft patterns, such as the abstract bird and vegetal motifs featured in this composition. Dyed silk was purchased from Arab and Indian traders until sericulture was introduced on the island in the early nineteenth century.

Akotyfahna textiles were worn by the Merina monarchy and nobility as lamba, or mantles draped on the body as a form of toga. Other important historical contexts for lavish works of this kind were the splendid funerary shrouds placed in royal burials. Their value and prestige were such that they were also given as official presents to foreign visiting ambassadors or sent to foreign heads of state.

During the second half of the nineteenth century, indigenous weaving was almost abandoned as less costly textiles of European manufacture were increasingly imported. A contemporary revival, this extraordinary work was created by the Imerina master Martin Rakotoarimanana.