Kuba Shoowa Prestige Panel

A fine net of black diamonds, drawn tight and mostly obedient.

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. Small black diamonds sit inside a tan lattice and fill the cloth in tidy diagonal rows at a fine scale. The left edge looks a little frayed and the hem is thin, with a few diamonds slipping out of line. The panel is 20.5 inches wide by 21.5 long.

Rigorous grid work with just enough wobble to prove a hand did it.