The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Special Exhibitions: The Essential Art of African Textiles: Design Without End

The Essential Art of African Textiles: Design Without End

		Interior Hanging Mali or Ghana; Fulani (?), 19th century Cotton, wool; 51 x 120 in. (129.5 x 304.8 cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1971 (1971.30)

Large-scale textiles created south of the Sahara were generally intended as enhancements for domestic environments. This exceptionally refined example must have been commissioned by a chiefly patron, perhaps to serve as a spectacular hanging. Designed to be displayed horizontally, the work's intricate composition is carefully balanced and symmetrical. Woven by a master according to a preplanned design, it was cut into its fifteen constituent strips. These were assembled to extend its entire length producing this complex expanse of checkerboard blocks, bands, and crosses. The checkerboard, a basic West African design, ultimately may derive from Islamic influences. In Islam, the orderly cosmos is often symbolized as an arrangement of squares emanating from a central point.