Half Tunic (16th century): Art, History and Details

Half Tunic (16th century) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The "t'oqapu" waistband and the deep V-yoke were standard decorations of Inca tunics. However, the fantastic animals represented in the yoke and the floral motifs in the main field identify this tunic as dating after the Spanish Conquest in 1532.

Object facts

• Title: Half Tunic
• Date: 16th century
• Culture: Peru, South Coast, Inca Culture, Colonial Period, 16th century
• Type: Textile
• Technique: interlocked tapestry; cotton and wool
• Dimensions: Overall: 92.7 x 72.1 cm (36 1/2 x 28 3/8 in.)
• Collection: T - Pre-Columbian
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1951.393

A detail from the museum

In Inca times, only the ruler and select nobles had the privilege of wearing t'oqapu tunics.

Collection credit

The Norweb Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Shepherd, Dorothy. "An Inca Poncho." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 42, no. 3 (March 1955): 48-50.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.

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.