Pagne Kuba

In sub-Saharan Africa, where representative art has flourished for centuries, carvers and crafts people have typically taken for their subjects human figures, animals, plants, and elements of the natural world. Abstract art, meanwhile, has remained marginal. The textiles of the BaKuba (Kuba) people of the Democratic Republic of Congo are an exception. Although part of a tradition that stretches back 400 years, Kuba textiles have a strikingly modern look. They use improvised systems of signs, lines, colors, and textures, often in the form of complex geometric rectilinear patterns. Their appliqués are reminiscent of works by 19th- and 20th-century masters like Matisse, Picasso, Klee, Penck, and Chellida. This is no coincidence: all of those artists were inspired by Kuba design!"

"The most commonly known of the Kuba textiles are the cut-pile Shoowa or Kasai Velvets, named after the river along which the BaKuba live. Improvisation and irregularity characterize the Kasai Velvets. This is because the weaver works without a plan or preliminary sketching, though the model can occasionally be displayed on the cloth in advance using black thread. Often the design is built up from memory, repeating the most common designs and color combinations found in the region. The message conveyed is up to the artist, who is the only one who can explain what he or she intended to represent."

"Originally Kasai Velvets were used as currency, and were valuable products for trade and exchange. They could be included in the tribute villagers paid annually to the King, in the dowries of matrimonial exchanges, and in funeral gifts and offerings to the dead. They also served to embellish the royal court, cover the royal thrones, and decorate the King’s palace wall. Colonial agents and missionaries arriving in the Kuba Kingdom in the nineteenth century were fascinated by the Kasai Velvets, and encouraged women to produce more of them to adorn religious vestments for Catholic missionaries and decorate the interiors of European houses." This piece measures 18" x 20"

Les differents pagnes

Les pagnes molletonne
pagnes Jacquard
Tisses ou singapattis
Cine

Le pagne double face

Livre important

The Dress of Makoti

This is an example of the dress of makoti. To show respect and submission to the authority of her husband and parents-in-law, traditional practice dictated that a newly-married Xhosa woman would wear her ikhetshemiya (headcloth) low over her forehead, keep her shoulders covered, cover her hips with a blanket and wear a isishweshwe skirt and apron. She should stay with her parents-in-law for up to a year, a period during which her behaviour conveyed that she adhered to ukuhlonipha traditions of respect. Aspects of this practice are still present but are being eroded with urbanization. Head cloth, blanket and towel on loan from Siphokazi Mesele, nee Lindelwa Pamela Mbola, who wore them when she was makoti.

Blaudruck

Simplified resist-dyeing techniques were used to create a fabric of small, white, regularly spaced patterns on a deep blue background. This was known in Germany as 'blaudruck' (blue print). This fabric was transformed into garments for work-wear and peasant-wear, and became associated with European regional and Protestant dress, as well as expressing nationalist sentiments. When German missionaries and traders immigrated to the Eastern Cape and other parts of southern Africa during the mid-1800s, they brought their 'blaudruck' with them and traded with those they came in contact with. It became popular amongst women on mission stations. This fabric was later adopted by IsiXhosa women in the Eastern Cape to produce garments.

Indienne

One of the oldest artefacts in the isishweshwe collection, this dress is an example of 'Indienne'. It is made of Indian cotton (chintz or calico) and has a continuous pattern of delicate intertwined stems bearing leaves and flowers. The dress originated on the Coromandel coast of India in the third quarter of the 18th century. Indian chintz was extremely popular throughout the eighteenth century, and was imported into the Netherlands by the Dutch East India Company, thus making it available at the Company's halfway station at the Cape.