Kuba Shoowa Prestige Panel

A scrambled field of diamonds and checkers that dissolves toward the bottom.

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 cloths come from the Kuba kingdom in the Kasai region, where men traditionally wove the raffia ground and women embroidered it. Across the top, black and cream diamonds fill the field, with checkered patches and angular hooked shapes breaking up the grid below. The pattern looks patched in uneven blocks, with a faded, blurred look in the lower middle and a narrow pinkish hem. It measures 21.5 inches wide and 26 long.

Order slowly losing an argument with improvisation.