Kuba Shoowa Prestige Panel

Interlaced knots and black triangles, gridded into a tidy tic-tac-toe of squares.

This Shoowa prestige panel is Kuba, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central Africa, and dates to the 20th century. It is piled raffia. The Kuba are known for raffia textiles in which a few simple elements are repeated and varied until the surface seems to move. Tan interlace knots with black triangular fills repeat inside large square blocks, divided by plain black bands that cross the cloth like a window frame. The ground is warm tan, and the edges are hemmed with a slight wave. It is 20.5 inches across and 25 long.

The knots behave themselves, but only because the grid insists.