Cloth with Procession of Figures (170 BCE–70 CE (radiocarbon date, 95% probability)): Art, History and Details

Cloth with Procession of Figures (170 BCE–70 CE (radiocarbon date, 95% probability)) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Experts agree that this cloth is one of the greatest paintings to survive from Andean antiquity due to the realism, complexity, large size, and refined execution of its figures. All but one of the figures wear the whiskered mouth mask of Nasca supernatural beings and several carry or wear severed human heads, which the Nasca linked to nature’s fruitfulness. Thus, the figures seem to represent supernatural forces or humans personifying such forces during a ritual devoted to agricultural fertility. Originally, the panel was attached along its upper edge to a dark blue cloth of equal size. The complete textile may have served as a mantle (a shawl-like garment), a hanging, or a funerary offering.

Object facts

• Title: Cloth with Procession of Figures
• Date: 170 BCE–70 CE (radiocarbon date, 95% probability)
• Culture: Central Andes, South Coast, Nasca people
• Type: Textile
• Technique: cotton and pigment (field); camelid fiber (borders and fringe)
• Dimensions: Overall: 69.8 x 280.7 cm (27 1/2 x 110 1/2 in.); Mounted: 78.7 x 290.2 cm (31 x 114 1/4 in.)
• Collection: T - Pre-Columbian
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1940.530

A detail from the museum

Characteristics of the pampas cat and the emperor tamarin monkey are visible in the marching figures.

Collection credit

The Norweb Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Milliken, William M. "Exhibition of the "Art of the Americas"." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 32, no. 9 (1945)
• Art of the Americas: Picture Book No. 2. (Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art,1946.)
• The Tiger's Eye. 1, no.5 (October, 1948)

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.