Kuba Shoowa Prestige Panel

A diagonal lattice of slender cream lines, like strands woven across the whole field. Inside it, blocks of rust, tan and deep brown-black plush.

The Shoowa are a group within the Kuba kingdom of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and this raffia prestige panel dates to the 20th century. Men wove the base cloth. Women worked the designs in fine cut-pile embroidery. Such panels served as signs of status, gifts and stores of wealth. Light and dark shift across the field, and a shaggy dark fringe frames the slightly irregular edges. About twenty by twenty-five inches.

Run your eye along the lattice. Then try to stop.