As I look back on some of the more unusual and significant pieces from our archive of sold cloths I am struck once again by the diversity and sophistication of the finest Ewe weaving. As I noted in an earlier post I have been assembling a selection of images of Ewe cloths on my Pinterest page here. This project is continuing and I will be adding other pages looking at other major groups of West African textiles over the coming months. Visit Pinterest for the full group but here are some highlights.
Ewe men's cloth, early C20th: Usually these weft faced cloths are only red, blue and white, but on this one the weaver went wild with new colours. The only example I have seen like it. Now in a private collection.
Ewe men's cloth, circa 1900: the weaver combines a supplementary floating warp and a floating weft to create the tooth-like pattern in the black squares. This is the only time I have seen this rare technique on a weft-faced cloth. Now in private collection.
Ewe men's cloth, early C20th: Silk weft motifs on cotton ground, the black dyed cotton in the weft stripes had perished. Now in private collection.
Ewe men's cloth, early C20th: On this exceptional cloth the weaver has placed the supplementary weft floats on top of the weft faced blocks rather than between them as is typical. Now in the Metropolitan Museum.
Click on the photos to enlarge. To see our current stock of Ewe cloths click here.
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