The Chimú Prisoner Textile (fragment),

1200–1290

This painted cloth panel was originally part of a long wall hanging. The massive textile was decorated with a sequence of large prisoners, surrounded by multitudes of smaller captives, with ropes tied around their necks. Although most figures are nude, the central figure wears a headpiece, suggesting that he is an elite male—and perhaps a trophy of war. The squares around the figures, which feature double-headed snakes and small animals, likely represent the walls of a palace courtyard where the captives are held. To produce the textile, a team of multiple artists laid out a faint blue underdrawing of guidelines and tick marks. Working quickly and with fluid paints, the artists filled in the colors, mixing the green paint directly on the cloth. It seems possible that they labored to complete the hanging for a pageant, procession, or some other event. Eventually, the cloth was folded and included in a royal tomb. When the tomb was rediscovered in the twentieth century, the huge cloth was chopped into multiple pieces and sold separately to different collectors. At least ten sections still exist and are now conserved in various museums around the world.

Andrew Hamilton, Associate Curator of Arts of the Americas, Art Institute of Chicago