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Unknown Maker, Guatemalan

Huipil Panel

Maker

Unknown Maker, Guatemalan

Culture

Guatemalan, K'iche Maya, or, Mam Maya

Title

Huipil Panel

Year

before 1917

Medium

  • Treadle-loom-woven cotton plain weave with cotton and silk supplementary weft patterning

Materials/Techniques

Techniques

  • Treadle-loom-woven cotton plain weave with cotton and silk supplementary weft patterning

Materials

cotton

Geography

Possibly Totonicapán, Totonicapán, or San Pedro Sacatepéquez, San Marcos, Guatemala; Place Made: Santo Tomás Chichicastenango, Dept. of El Quiché, Guatemala

Dimensions

Length: 396.2 cm (156 inches)

Credit / Object Number

Credit

Gift of Mrs. Barbara Deering Danielson

Object Number

82.308.24B

Type

  • Costume

Exhibition History

From the Loom of a Goddess
Reverberations of Guatemalan Mayan Weaving
Feb 23, 2018 – Aug 19, 2018

Label copy

The long textile with blue-and-red patterned bands shows how a huipil looks as it comes off the loom, before it is sewn. This example was woven on a foot-powered treadle loom, technology introduced by the Spanish and operated by men, though the design refers to patterns traditionally produced by women using drawlooms. Diamonds and zigzags symbolize the feathered serpent deity Q’uq’umatz, and long-tailed birds resemble the quetzal, a rare bird whose feathers were reserved exclusively for the headdresses of rulers. In the adjacent huipil, the blue-and-purple bands of chevrons may refer to the serpent, the mythological means by which the sun and stars move across the sky.

El largo tejido con bandas estampadas en azul y rojo muestra cómo se ve un huipil cuando sale del telar, antes de ser cosido. Esta muestra fue tejida en un telar de pedal, una tecnología introducida por los españoles y operada por hombres, aunque el diseño es alusivo a patrones tradicionalmente producidos por mujeres que usan telares de dibujo. Diamantes y zigzags simbolizan a la deidad serpiente emplumada Q'uq'umatz, y las aves de cola larga se parecen al quetzal, un ave rara cuyas plumas estaban reservadas exclusivamente para los tocados de los gobernantes. En el huipil adyacente, las bandas de cabríos azules y moradas aluden a la serpiente, el medio mitológico por el cual el sol y las estrellas se mueven a través del cielo.

Image use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use.

Public Domain This object is in the Public Domain and available under a CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication

Tombstone

Unknown Maker, Guatemalan
Huipil Panel, before 1917
Treadle-loom-woven cotton plain weave with cotton and silk supplementary weft patterning
Length: 396.2 cm (156 inches)
Gift of Mrs. Barbara Deering Danielson 82.308.24B

To request new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.

Feedback

We view our online collection as a living documents, and our records are frequently revised and enhanced. If you have additional information or have spotted an error, please send feedback to curatorial@risd.edu.

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