Kuba Shoowa Prestige Panel

Four quadrants, four moods, and not one of them asked the others.

This Shoowa prestige panel is Kuba, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central Africa, and dates to the 20th century. It is piled raffia. Shoowa embroiderers generally work in geometric designs, and the patterns are often said to be composed as the stitching goes. Four sections of different patterns are joined together: dense black diamond studs top left, meander lines top right, and open diamond grids below. The ground is pale tan. Seams between sections are plainly visible, and the border is narrow. It is 17 inches across and 26.5 long.

A patchwork where every patch had a different opinion.