Two hand-coloured portraits, Senegal, early C20th.

Classic Hausa / Nupe robe image

The “eight knives” embroidery style on an indigo robe. Undyed narrow strip cotton cloth turban. Rare vintage card, before 1910, author’s collection.

Capulana: uma viagem na História da Moda Moçambicana (1846-2012), by Sof...

A unique Ewe kente

Ewe653 - Unique early Ewe chief’s cloth in a previously unknown style. Distinctive geometric supplementary weft float motifs in pale blue, yellow, and white cotton play around with variations on triangles, zigzags and lines on a background made up of narrow red cotton stripes on hand spun indigo dyed cotton. One figurative motif, which appears to represent a frog, picks up on the zigzags designs. At the lower edge is a composite strip in which the motifs are narrowed to leave space for a solid red border. Red borders, either as an edge to a standard width strip or a separate narrower strip, were found on a number of styles of early Ewe cloth and may be indicative of historical links with Dioula weavers from Mali.

The use of hand spun thread in an Ewe cloth is extremely rare and may be indicative of an early date. A number of peoples on the periphery of the Ewe speaking region who now regard themselves as Ewe may earlier have had other more local identities and it is possible that this cloth is an example of one of these previously un-noticed regional variants, or perhaps of an Ewe influenced neighbouring group. Date: probably C19th. Condition: The cloth is complete and intact but has three small circular patches (under 2 cm diameter) taken from another cloth. It also has a number of faint but still perceptible stains. Nevertheless it is a beautiful and fascinating piece and as we noted, the only known example of the style. Size: 95 ins x 60, 242cm x 153, PRICE: Email for price.

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For more exceptional Ewe kente cloths please visit our gallery here.

Mossi indigo wrapper cloths

Indigo has been on my mind a lot recently. I finally got around to reading Jenny Balfour-Paul’s classic book Indigo in the Arab World (Routledge, 1997) and ten days or so ago I returned from a brief trip to Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso where I had passed an enjoyable week looking around for more Mossi indigo wrappers. These soft faded old cloths are among the best sellers in our shop (cushions made from them can be seen in the Andalusian estate on the cover of October 2012 issue of World of Interiors.)  Since then the post from Burkina has been bringing large bags of the cloths in their various shades, recalling Balfour-Paul’s wonderful list  - in eighteenth century Europe “dyers classified indigo colours into thirteen separate shades, beginning with the lightest: ‘milk-blue, pearl-blue, pale-blue, flat-blue, middling-blue, sky-blue, queen’s blue, turkish-blue, watchet-blue, garter-blue, mazareen-blue, deep-blue, and very deep or navy-blue (or ‘infernal blue’).” (page 117.)

On our cloths it is years of rigorous hand washing and drying under the fierce Saharan sun that have created the range of shades rather than the initial dyeing.

In the mid-C20th postcard above the cones of thatch cover the indigo dye pits to maintain them at the correct temperature. Two indigo wrappers may be seen hanging at the right of the figures.

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For some of the Mossi wrappers and other of our vintage indigo cloths for sale click here.

Minimal #7: Yoruba women’s weave, trans-Saharan trade silk and wild silk.

More from an occasional series of posts that will highlight some rare West African textiles where the elaboration and complexity of design that usually typifies high status textiles is replaced by a more minimal aesthetic….

NW489 - Another extremely rare and early type of Yoruba women's weave cloth, dating from the late C19th or early C20th. One is shown in the classic book "Nigerian Weaving" (1980:200) by Venice Lamb and Judy Holmes and captioned "a very old pure silk Yoruba cloth." We have collected three others over the years, the last one about 5 years back. The warp is local beige and white wild silk sanyan, the weft white hand spun cotton, while the design alternates rows of openwork holes with threefold lines of supplementery weft float woven from thick loosely spun magenta silk from the trans Saharan trade. Formed of two panels of cloth joined at the centre and woven by a woman using an upright single heddle loom. Condition: loose fibres from the magenta silk have spread onto adjacent beige and white fibres in places, creating an appearance similar to slight colour bleeding, otherwise condition is excellent. Measurements: 78ins x 56, 200cm x 142.

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More details on our gallery here.

Minimal #6: Yoruba women’s weave wild silk wrapper cloth.

More from an occasional series of posts that will highlight some rare West African textiles where the elaboration and complexity of design that usually typifies high status textiles is replaced by a more minimal aesthetic….

NW469 - Very rare early C20th cloth woven from local beige wild silk "sanyan" with stripes of creamy white hand spun cotton. Bands of openwork woven holes decorate the lower edge of the cloth. Sanyan cloths woven by women are far scarcer than strip woven sanyan. Formed of two panels of cloth joined at the centre and woven by a woman using an upright single heddle loom. This beautiful cloth has a soft feel, a few minor marks and worn spots but overall is in good condition. Measurements: 77ins x 59ins, 195cm x 149 cm.

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More details on our gallery here.