Luxury Cloth

16th–17th century, inventoried 1877-1878

Not on view

Returned to lender

This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.

This fragment of a dyed raffia cloth may have been part of a cushion cover. It is the only work in the extant corpus of early Kongo textiles that features such extensive use of black pigment. In a 1512 letter, King Afonso I of Kongo (r. 1509–42) mentions sending a royal gift that included fine black raffia cloth to his Portuguese counterpart Manuel I (r. 1495–1521).

Artwork Details

Overview

Provenance

Exhibition History

References

Title: Luxury Cloth
Date: 16th–17th century, inventoried 1877-1878
Geography: Democratic Republic of the Congo; Republic of the Congo; Angola
Culture: Kongo peoples; Kongo Kingdom
Medium: Raffia, black pigment
Dimensions: 16 3/8 × 21 in. (41.6 × 53.4 cm)
Classification: Textiles-Woven
Credit Line: MIBACT–Polo Museale del Lazio, Museo Preistorico Etnografico Luigi Pigorini, Rome
Curatorial Department: The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing