Framed Large Nazca Wari Textile Panel with Geometrical Design

A large Nazca-Wari woven textile panel known as Llika or Awayo (shawl) from Ica Valley on the south coast of nowadays Peru. Professionally mounted and conversed on a linen-backed wood frame and presented in an acrylic shadow box. Shawls with this step design were identified as made from the period of 700 to 1100 AD during the transitional period when Nazca went under the expanded rule of the Wari empire. The textile was finely woven from a camelid fiber dyed with natural pigments. The work strikes the viewer immediately with its unexpected modernity. The simple, bold and repetitive geometry with the scintillating color blocks created a lyrical visual rhythm and could easily mistake it as an abstract art from the 20th century. The step design was one of the unusual abstract motifs used by the pre-Columbian weavers from Nazca, who created some of the most mysterious and soul-stirring work with a minimalism aesthetic that was rarely seen in any other ancient textile art. Considering that the artists were completely isolated without the influences of other cultures, their intrinsic creativity and artistic vision are even more impressive.
Provenance: From the collection of Lee M. Elman.
Published: James W. Reid, The Lee M. Elman Collection of Peruvian Pre-Columbian Textiles, 2007, Editorial Ausonia, Lima, page 37.
This catalog will be included with the purchase.
Reference: To see a nearly identical shawl, see illustration 69 on plate 45 of " Textile Masterpieces of Ancient Peru" by James W. Reid.