Kuba Shoowa Prestige Panel

Diamonds with holes in them, repeated until your eye gives up counting.

This Shoowa prestige panel was woven by Kuba artists of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central Africa, from raffia in the 20th century. Cloths of this type are often tied to rank, ceremony and funerary use, and their abstract designs are widely admired. The field here is a staggered grid of open, dark-edged diamonds on a warm tan ground, with small touches of rust and brown. The cut-pile surface gives the pattern a soft, slightly raised texture, and the borders are gently irregular.

About seventy-one by twenty-three inches. A quiet, textured presence that suits a hallway.