Kuba Shoowa Prestige Panel

Hourglasses and lozenges stacked in a pale field, with black triangles at both ends.

This Shoowa prestige panel is Kuba, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central Africa, and dates to the 20th century. It is piled raffia. Kuba textiles were woven and embroidered to be worn, gifted and buried with the dead, long before collectors hung them on walls. The ground is a pale cream with a soft, light tone. Large outlined lozenges and hourglass shapes run down the middle, framed top and bottom by bands of black triangles and zigzags. A pink border cloth wraps the edges. It measures 17.5 inches wide and 17.5 long.

Plenty of white space, and the nerve to leave it.