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The Essential Art of African Textiles: Design Without End
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Kente Prestige Cloth (detail)
Ghana; Ewe peoples, 19th century
Cotton, silk; Warp 74 in. (188 cm), weft 9 ft. 1 7/8 in. (279 cm)
The British Museum, London (Af1934,0307.165)
Provenance: Collected in West Africa between 1880 and 1900 by Charles Beving Sr.
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Richly elaborated and costly kente textiles, identified with wealth and status, are the ultimate attribute of prestige in both Ewe and Asante societies. These glorious fabrics were worn as voluminous toga-like garments draped majestically around the body to mark special occasions. During the eighteenth century Asante weavers radically expanded the palette drawn upon for such creations by unraveling silks imported along the coast for their richly hued threads. In order to execute such monumental works, the very long fabric woven on a double-heddle horizontal treadle loom is cut at fixed intervals to produce a series of strips that are sewn together selvage to selvage. A man's cloth typically requires twenty-four such strips. In this example, the strips come from seven loomed lengths, each with a different warp arrangement. The resulting vertical stripes present rhythms of repetition that are not immediately discernable. To vary the pattern further, the colorful asymmetrical strips are set in opposite directions so that they mirror each other.
See the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History for more information about Asante textile arts.
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