Tunic with Frontal Figures (1400–1532): Art, History and Details

Tunic with Frontal Figures (1400–1532) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This tunic was made by weavers of the Ychsma (yeach-mah) people, who were affiliated with Pachacamac, a vast religious center that housed an oracle. The figures repeated across its composition may represent important ancestors or high-ranking members of society. The tunic likely dates to the period after the Inka Empire conquered Ychsma coastal territory, eventually becoming the largest Indigenous empire to have existed in the ancient Americas.

Object facts

• Title: Tunic with Frontal Figures
• Date: 1400–1532
• Culture: Central Andes, Central Coast, Ychsma (Pachacamac) people
• Type: Textile
• Technique: Cotton; slit tapestry weave
• Dimensions: neck edge to hem: 46.7 cm (18 3/8 in.); width across shoulders: 81.9 cm (32 1/4 in.)
• Collection: T - Pre-Columbian
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 2016.267

Collection credit

Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Bergh, Susan E. “Acquisition Highlights 2016: Pre-Columbian and Native North American Art.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 57, no. 2 (March/April 2017): 15-16.

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.