Kuba Shoowa Prestige Panel

Scattered diamonds on a golden field, like stars someone stitched down.

Kuba artists of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central Africa, made this Shoowa prestige panel in raffia in the 20th century. Shoowa cloths are commonly linked with prestige, dress and ceremony. This one has a lighter, honey-colored ground sprinkled with small dark diamonds in loose rows, broken by a few bands of tighter pattern lower down. Rust and black accents appear here and there. The weave is soft and a little uneven at the edges, which suits it.

About seventy by twenty-two inches. The brightest of the long, narrow family.