Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Luxury Cloth: Cushion Cover
Not on view
At the end of the nineteenth century, when the National Museum in Copenhagen de-accessioned this early Kongo textile, it was acquired by a discerning collector of textiles who donated it to the British Museum. In the pattern on this narrow rectangular cushion cover, figure and ground have been joined to form a single plane of interlocking branches that contains a high degree of visual tension. The bands have become shifting “T” shapes. Both cut and uncut supplementary weft surfaces are equally balanced. The interlocking motifs are outlined and articulated through alternating narrow bands of uncut and cut pile, while their interior surfaces are filled with cut-pile split diamonds.
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