Kuba Shoowa Prestige Panel

Hard black and tan checks, stitched in two columns around a center line.

This Shoowa prestige panel is Kuba, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central Africa, and dates to the 20th century. It is piled raffia. Among the Kuba, raffia cloth long carried questions of rank, and panels like this were generally worn as skirts or given at ceremonies and funerals. Bold black diamonds on a khaki ground form a tight diagonal lattice, almost a checkerboard, across two halves joined at a vertical seam. The contrast is sharp, and an olive-tan border runs around the edge. It measures 18.25 inches wide and 19.75 long.

Graphic enough to hold its own in any decade.