Kuba Shoowa Prestige Panel

Four patterns, one square of raffia, and no two quarters in agreement.

The Kuba peoples of the Democratic Republic of Congo made this Shoowa panel in the 20th century. Shoowa cloths, dense with cut-pile embroidery, served as prestige goods and gifts and as a form of wealth, and were often buried with the dead.

About nineteen inches on a side, it divides into quarters: interlaced lozenges, crossed bands, nested diamonds, each in deep brown pile on a natural tan ground. The edges are neatly bound. Light wear and one small dark mark.

A good argument, settled by geometry.