Three Early Textiles from Côte D’Ivoire in Newark Museum.

Although there are currently large quantities of  fairly recently woven cloths from the Baule peoples of Côte D’Ivoire in the international market, the earlier textile traditions of that country remain obscure and little researched. Much of the detail of the historical relationship between Ivoirian textiles and those of neighbouring countries such as Mali and Ghana is still to be understood. How do earlier cloths relate to the ethnic groups such as Senufo, Guro, and Baule that are so well known to collectors of African sculpture ? Looking carefully at textiles with early acquisition dates in museum collections is one way in which scholars can begin to address some of these issues.  The three cloths shown below were accessioned by Newark Museum in 1928 and according to records generously shared by Newark Museum Research Associate Roger D. Arnold were purchased that year from a gallery in Paris. The first and to me most interesting (Newark Museum #28.835) is to my knowledge the earliest recorded example of this very elaborate and odd type of cloth that a couple of later sources have attributed to the Guro.

 

As Roger suggested to me there are intriguing visual similarities between this cloth and some from Senegal, Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde.

The other two (Newark Museum#28.836 & 28.862) are fine examples of a slightly better known type of cloth with blocks of extra weft float patterning in a style that is primarily associated with the Dioula (Jula) people of northern Côte D’Ivoire. However the use of red and yellow for the patterning in these two examples rather than the more typical white is exceptional.

Thanks are due to Roger Arnold for the images.

Cloth of the month–an exceptional Bondoukou man’s cloth.

fr473 - One of a very small number of museum quality Bondoukou men's cloths, this subtle and beautiful piece uses complex blocks of coloured weft threads muted by the predominant indigo warp as the sole decorative effect. Although this is a very old decorative technique found in some of the earliest Ghanaian textiles the sophisticated effect achieved here by varying the colours and the placement of blocks is to my knowledge unique. One strip is missing from each edge (they were likely removed because they were excessively frayed) but the cloth is otherwise in very good condition with no patches, holes, or stains. Dates from C19th or early C20th. Measurements: 118ins x 71ins, 300cm x 180cm. PRICE: Email for price.

Bondoukou is in the north east of Ivory Coast, not far from the border with Ghana. Culturally and historically  it shares many features with the nearby Brong-Ahafo region of Ghana, such as small Akan kingdoms and chieftaincies ruling primarily farming peoples and significant communities of Muslim traders of Malian ancestry. The textiles of this region, as I discussed in my article in Hali magazine a few years ago, now on my website here, share features with both Asante and Ewe cloths from Ghana and with Ivoirian cloths of the Guro and Baule.

Two cloths from the collection of the Museum de Kulturen, Basel, published in the important exhibition catalogue Woven Beauty: The Art of West African Textiles edited by Berhard Gardi (Basel, 2009) illustrate the early use of the same technique.

This cloth, collected in 1840, is the oldest documented kente in the world. Here red, yellow, and blue weft stripes are muted by the white warp. The author notes that it may be attributed to either an Asante or an Ewe weaver – although I would suggest the red edge strip is strongly indicative of an Ewe origin.

This second piece, collected in 1886, is attributed by the author to the Asante on the rather weak grounds that the collection location is nearer Asante than it is to the Ewe. It is closer to our cloth in that indigo and white stripes are used in the warp although the variety of weft colours is still much less, and the pattern layout much less sophisticated. Click on the photos to enlarge. More Bondoukou cloths on our website here.

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.

Click on the photos to enlarge.

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

Minimal Four–another Bondoukou men’s cloth

In this series of posts I 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….

fr505 - Superb man's cloth from the Bondoukou region with very unusual and subtle minimal design. On a neat hand spun indigo dyed cotton ground the weaver has carefully aligned rows of narrow diamond shaped supplementary weft float patterns. On the second to last row from the bottom of the cloth the colours are reversed. In excellent condition. Dates from early C20th. Measurements: 110ins x 76ins, 280cm x 193cm.

Click on the images to enlarge.

For more information please visit our gallery of Ivory Coast textiles here

Minimal Three – Bondoukou man’s cloth

In this series of posts I 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….

FR527 - Unusual man's cloth from the Bondoukou region of northern Ivory Coast with a simple but graphically strong design of blocks of blue and yellow wefts on a background of white and blue hand spun cotton. This is the only white ground men's cloth I have seen, although we have collected several smaller white women's cloths. In excellent complete condition, dates from circa 1930-50. Measurements: 100ins x 66ins, 255cm x 169cm.

Click on the images to enlarge.

For more information please visit our gallery of Ivory Coast textiles here

African Textiles in Africaniste Art–an unusual case.

Marché en A.O.F. signed J.B. Vettiner, 1931. [click all images to enlarge]. From Christie’s sale The Africanists, Amsterdam 1 July 1998. Oil on canvas, preparatory work for a mural painted in the pavilion of the city of Bordeaux at the 1931 International Colonial Exhibition in Paris.

Although this is in most respects a typical colonial genre scene of no outstanding merit, it is unusual because of the detail and accuracy with which the artist has depicted the textiles worn by the participants. Moreover the textiles shown are in several instances extremely rare styles not well represented even in French museum collections. I am intrigued to find these cloths shown in this context and can’t help wondering if they have survived in an obscure French collection, perhaps in Bordeaux, to this day. The scene was clearly not drawn from life – there is no suggestion in the limited biographical information available on the artist, Jean-Baptiste Vettiner (1871-1935), that he travelled in West Africa, and the cloths shown are far too elaborate and expensive to have been worn by porters in the market. Gathering cotton was a frequent theme of colonial imagery as the postcards dating to circa 1910-20 below show.

So what can be said about these cloths ? The image below numbers the main pieces.

1. Wool kaasa blanket from Mali, of the lanndaaka type, with the central motif of the mosque, lanndal, woven by a maabo weaver. Shown  wrongly worn vertically as a kind of hooded burnous rather wrapped horizontally. The kaasa lanndaaka below is in the National Museum of Mali, Bamako – see Textiles du Mali, Bernhard Gardi, 2003.

2 and 4. Indigo dyed cotton cloths with white warp stripes at the selvedge of each strip and coloured supplementary weft float motifs are typical of the Bondoukou region on the northern part of the Ghana/ Côte D'Ivoire border, where they were woven by Dioula, and perhaps Abron or Koulango weavers. The cloth below is on our gallery.

3 and 6. These are really obscure types, related to weft faced cloths woven in West and north west parts of Côte D'Ivoire by weavers who may be Guro, Mande or Dioula, working in a number of as yet undocumented local traditions. The Musee Quai Branly in Paris has a superb collection of related pieces, although unfortunately largely without much useful collection data. Search for Côte D'Ivoire  in their textiles collection database to see more. They have the piece below as Senufo but that is unlikely as the Senufo learned weaving from the Dioula in the early decades of the C20th.

5. Also from Côte D'Ivoire this cloth is an example of a slightly better known but still rare style that we believe to be the work of Guro or Mande weavers. The example below is on our gallery now.

7. One of the more unusual types of Malian blanket, the arkilla bammbu would have been used as a prestige display hanging for a Fulani wedding and is most unlikely to have been worn at all. The detail below is from a cloth in the National Museum of Mali, Bamako – see Textiles du Mali, Bernhard Gardi, 2003.

8. This cloth has embroidered rather than woven decoration, probably the work of a Hausa embroiderer in the north of Côte D'Ivoire. I know of only one related example of this style on a man’s wrap cloth (rather than robes and trousers). Now in the Karun Thakar collection (www.karuncollection.com) it was acquired in Accra and probably collected in northern Ghana.

A Dan Chief’s Robe at Sotheby’s 13 May 2011

Lot 283A at Sotheby’s upcoming auction of African, Oceanic and pre-Columbian Art in New York on 13 May is this interesting robe, collected in Liberia between 1926 and 1930. The simple tailoring of the robe with the cut and folded pocket below the neck and the absence of distinct sleeves is characteristic of the area from Cote D’Ivoire through Liberia into Sierra Leone while the weaving is typical of Mande/Dioula cloth in some northern areas of these countries. Although there is some description of Dan weaving there is very little documentation of the patterns and styles they produced, so I am not clear whether the cloth used for this robe is the work of a Dan weaver or imported by a Dioula trader.

The estimate of USD 6000-9000 seems rather high for a robe that, however unusual in collections, is neither particularly early, nor in my view, of outstanding visual appeal.

The "Spotted Hyena" - Dioula ikat weaving in northern Ivory Coast

A Dioula weaver at work in the square beside the mosque, Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso. Vintage postcard, circa 1910, author's collection.

The Dioula or Dyula are a Muslim Mande-speaking people who migrated from present day Mali into what is now northern Cote D'Ivoire and southern Burkina Faso in the sixteenth century. Specialists in long-distance trade, Islamic scholarship, and textile production the Dioula were key players in the distribution of weaving technology throughout West Africa. Dioula weavers wove cloths for their own use and for trading both locally to farming peoples such as the Senufo and Koulango, and as trade goods for their long distance caravans south to the Guinea coast and east via Bondoukou to Salaga in northern Ghana.

Key features of Dioula weaving were complex supplementary weft float motifs, the early introduction of imported red threads, and at least from the end of the C19th, the use of ikat (ikat was rare in West African weaving - the Yoruba in Nigeria were the other main practitioners of the technique.) The "spotted hyena" or "suruku kawa" was the Dioula name for the oldest of their warp ikat patterned designs, in which solid blocks of indigo blue across the whole strip width alternated along the cloth with the white cotton ground. These ikat decorated strips could be used to create an overall checker board layout of alternated with warp striped or check patterned strips.

"Elegantes de Kong" (Prouteaux 1925, p.608)

In the second half of the C20th hand-woven cloth was no longer part of everyday dress but was still in demand for weddings, festivals, and other ceremonial occasions. The suruku kawa pattern was no longer fashionable and was displaced by other ikat designs developed mainly by the Baule who had taken over and elaborated the Dioula technique.

An elderly Dioula weaver, Dar Salami, south Burkina Faso, 2004 (auther's photograph.)

Dioula cloths were not widely collected and are poorly represented in museum collections, with the exception of Basel Museum, where a number of important pieces are included in their current exhibition "Woven Beauty." We have now posted on our gallery website a fine group of mid-C20th examples collected in north east Cote D'Ivoire. For details and prices see our page here. For more on Dioula weaving see chapter by Dr Kerstin Bauer in the Basel exhibition catalogue here.

Recent European Publications on African Textiles

A brief round-up of recent European publications on sub-Saharan African textiles. A later post will cover recent books on African fashion. French Africanist booksellers Soumbala (www.soumbala.com) are a good source for most of these.

	Kerstin Bauer, Kleidung und Kleidungspraktiken im Nordern der Cote d'Ivoire (Lit Verlag, 2007) is Bauer's important doctoral thesis (University of Basel, 2005) which highlights the crucial but previously under appreciated role of the Dioula in West African textile history.
	Mai Diop, Pagnes... Panos... Les etoffes magnetique des Mandjak - Guinee Bissau - Cap Vert - Senegal (Les Ateliers d'Art Tesss, Saint-Louis) Beautifully produced booklet on Mandjak and Cape Verde cloths.
	Bouilloc, C et.al. Afrique Bleue: les routes de l'indigo (Edisud, 2000) - exhibition catalogue
	Anne Grosfilley, Afrique des Textiles (Edisud, 2005) - useful introduction to current textile production with emphasis on Francophone West African
	Anne Grosfilley, Textiles d'Afrique: entre tradition et modernite (Edition Point de Vues, 2006) - exhibition catalogue
	Mali: Photographies et Textiles Contemporains (Musee de Design et D'Arts Appliques Contemporains, Lausanne, 2003) - small exhibition catalogue
	Pauline Duponchel, Textiles Bogolan du Mali (Musee d'Ethnographie, Neuchatel, 2004) - important and substantial publication based on years of field research.
	Gravellini, Anne-Chantal, and Annie Ringuede. Blues et ocres de Guinee: Teintures vegetales sur textiles. (Paris: Sepia. 2005) - beautiful book with extensive photography
	Patricia Gerimont, Teinturieres a Bamako: Quand la couleur sort de sa reserve (Ibis, 2008) - superb and very well illustrated.
	Anne-Marie Bouttiaux et al. African Costumes and Textiles: From the Berbers to the Zulus (5 Continents, 2008) - coffee table book of Belgian private collection, worth getting for the costumes, hats etc, but the West African textiles are disappointingly ordinary and in some cases wrongly labelled.