Huari Polychrome Textile Fragment - Falcon Staff Bearer

Pre-Columbian, South Coast Peru, Huari (Wari) culture, ca. 700 to 1000 CE. A fabulous textile panel comprised of tightly woven camelid (alpaca or llama wool) fibers in hues of brown, old gold, cream, fuchsia, and maroon. The rectangular panel features two registers of abstract avian figures, and the narrow register is densely illustrated with falcons, parrots, and macaws atop a brown-hued ground. The wider program shows abstract representations of the god known as the Falcon Staff Bearer with an upturned avian head atop a kneeling anthropomorphic body. An exquisite Huari textile replete with fine colors and intricate iconography. Mounted on a museum-quality display fabric. Size (textile): 8.5" W x 16.75" H (21.6 cm x 42.5 cm); (display fabric): 16.25" W x 22.875" H (41.3 cm x 58.1 cm)

Textiles and items containing woven textile materials were some of the most valuable items in Huari culture as they probably exacted them as tribute from the peoples they conquered. This makes it difficult for archaeologists to identify where these beautiful objects were originally woven, because they travelled so much around the Huari Empire. The textiles that are preserved today are often from the desert areas between the Pacific Coast and the Andes; the Huari capital, in the highlands, was too wet to preserve cloth through the centuries, and as a result, textiles like this example are exceedingly rare.

Provenance: private Hawaii, USA collection; ex-private Hans Juergen Westermann collection, Germany, acquired in the 1950s to 1960s

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#148264
Condition Report: This is a fragment from a larger textile composition. Outer half and one corner of narrow register reattached to larger body with modern thread. Restoration to small area of one peripheral edge. Minor loosening and fraying to some interior and peripheral threads, with light fading and staining to original colors, and minor creasing. Nice remains of original pigment and iconography throughout.