Andean Tapestry

Andean Tapestries are impresive for bold design, brilliant colors, and exquisite craftmanship. This immediate impression belies a vast body of information below the surface, data that might suggest material selection, production techniques, regional trade, cultural borrowing, innovation, workshops, artist’s hand, and ultimaely provenance. these data are important because most of the world’s collections of Andean textiles contain minimal documentation of original source. But art historians regularly eschew there technical aspects for theoretical discussions or surface evaluations concerning color patterning, design relationships, and iconographic programs.

During the Sixteenth century, chroniclers of New World discoveries discussed the high value of textiles to the indigenous population. The tapestry tunic woven of the finest camelidae fibers in Vicuña or selected Alpaca was an imperial Andean garment reserved for the emperor himself, military officials, and a select group of Incas of royal blood.
Because of the enormous value placed on textiles, it is not surprising to uncover Andean Tapestries in locations widely separate from ther original place of manufacture. Textiles certainly traveled, having been carried, traded, and finally deposited throughout the region comprising modern Ecuador, Bolivia, northern Chile, and Argentina. Liturgical cloth was distributed for use in provincial rituals. During the Inca period, gifts of tapestry tunics were used to bind contracts beetwen the capital, provincial administrators, and leaders of conquered territories. Ther moved with the military and were placed in burials throughout the empire.

Tapestries were part of a vast redistributive, imperial system, regionally made and sent back to the center. But how then might it be possible to determine from the tapestries themselves the original local sources, the ancient centers of tapestry manufacture?

Structure provides an essential tool for distinguishing a tapestry’s origin. Unfortunately, most Andean preconquest textile collections lack specific archeological contexts. And although they are highland based, Recuay, Huari, Tiwanaku, and Inca Textiles have been recovered from desert coastal zones where arid conditions and burial practices have contributed and often remarkably complete preservation of usually perishable highlands objects. Therefore, it is important to clarify culturally specific structural charateristics in order to provide a tool for documentation and research in the field of Andean Textiles.