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Mantle

Peruvian (Paracas)
Early Intermediate, Phase 1
0–A.D. 100
Object Place: Peru, Paracas, South Coast

Medium/Technique Wool plain weave with stem-stitch embroidery
Dimensions 134.6 x 255.3 cm (53 x 100 1/2 in.)
Credit Line Denman Waldo Ross Collection
Accession Number16.32
NOT ON VIEW
ClassificationsCostumes

DescriptionGround: deep purple woolen cloth. Design: rectangles containing conventionalized human figures each bearing a staff, arranged checker-board fashion, worked solidly in crewel stitch with wool. The ground of the embroidered rectangles is crimson, the figures neutral blues and greens, neutral yellows, light blue, pink and a little white. Along one side the remains of an embroidered border with similar figures on a crimson ground.
ProvenanceOctober, 1915, sold by Enrique Mestanza, Pisco, Peru, to Julio C. Tello, Francisco Graña Reyes, and Gonzalo Carbajal, Lima [see note 1]; 1915/1916, sold by Julio Tello to Denman Waldo Ross (b. 1853 - d. 1935), Cambridge, MA [see note 2]; 1916, gift of Denman Waldo Ross to the MFA. (Accession Date: February 3, 1916)

NOTES:
[1] On the sale of the Mestanza collection, see Anne Paul, ed., Paracas: Art and Architecture (Iowa City, 1991), pp. 36-38 and Richard Daggett, A Tello-Centric History of Peruvian Archaeology part 2, pp. 360, 386-387. [2] Ross purchased a number of textiles and fragments from Tello (probably acting for Carbajal) between December 27, 1915 and January 8, 1916. When they were accessioned by the MFA (accession nos. 16.30-16.42), they were mistakenly believed to have been found by Tello himself "[in a cemetery] three or four miles south of Pisco."