Kuba Shoowa Prestige Panel

A clean black diamond lattice, closely spaced, and perfectly reasonable.

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. Small black diamonds sit between tan lattice lines in an even all-over layout. The scale is fine and the repeat is steady, with only a few diamonds at the bottom edge running a little irregular. The edges are hemmed. The panel is 19.5 inches wide by 21 long.

No drama at all, just good diamonds in good order.