Lot 241
Ecuadorian Macana Shawl - Indigo Ikat & Fleco
Ecuadorian Macana Shawl - Indigo Ikat & Fleco
Starting Bid: $250
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South America, Ecuador, Azuay Province, Gualaceo, ca. late 19th to early 20th century CE. A fine cotton macana from Ecuador's Gualaceo valley whose warp-ikat field, figured indigo band, and elaborately knotted fringe together constitute one of the more quietly arresting textile traditions of the Andean world, each zone speaking a distinct technical language while remaining in strict visual conversation with the others. The body of the shawl is woven in warp-faced plain weave with a white cotton ground, patterned across its expanse by warp ikat worked in natural indigo. The primary field carries a dense, all-over repeat of small botanical or insect-derived forms, likely the stylized butterfly (mariposa) motif characteristic of Gualaceo production, in which clustered dark resist-dyed marks resolve, at a slight remove, into hovering winged shapes scattered evenly across the ground. Dividing the body near each end is a wide horizontal band of deep indigo on which rows of small leaping quadrupeds, perhaps horses and perhaps hinds, alternate with upright cruciform plant forms. The figures carry the soft-edged bleed inherent to the ikat process, each silhouette holding its own gentle ambiguity. Size: 102" L x 27.5" W (259.1 cm L x 69.8 cm W)
The warp tension, motif register, and indigo saturation across the field indicate production on a backstrap loom with a circular warp, the traditional Gualaceo setup in which warping and weaving were the work of men while the resist-binding and dyeing of the warp threads, the labor-intensive preparatory process using black sisal cord to tie off each motif before immersion, were the province of women.
At both terminal ends the warp threads are released and worked into el fleco, the elaborately knotted fringe that is the macana's most time-consuming and socially legible feature. The fleco opens with a transitional zone of macrame knotting in geometric registers, diamond lattice and four-petaled clover forms building a structured ground from which the figural needlework emerges. The wide central field that follows is built from the warp ends themselves and populated with a pastoral and botanical world of considerable specificity: large trees of life with symmetrically chevron-branching fronds anchor the composition, flanked by eight-petaled floral rosettes and pairs of confronted birds. Between and beside these forms, rendered in the same warp-end needlework, are what appear to be alpacas or llamas in profile, their characteristic long necks and compact bodies distinguishable among the botanical registers. The camelid is not an incidental figure in this context. Integral to the highland Andean pastoral economy and a persistent presence in the region's visual imagination well before the Inca horizon, the llama or alpaca among the trees and flowers of the fleco situates the macana unambiguously within its Andean world, the domestic landscape of Azuay rendered in thread with the same unselfconscious authority as the indigo birds and the branching trees of life above. A second geometric macrame border closes the figural zone before the warp ends fall free as a dense, evenly distributed fringe.
The macana, also called paño de Gualaceo, is the traditional women's shawl of Azuay province in Ecuador's southern highlands, centered on Gualaceo county in the Cuenca basin. Worn folded and draped across the shoulders, it functioned as a marker of regional identity and social standing, and in its finest examples as an index of the weaving community's collective technical ambition. The knotted fleco was not mere ornament but demonstration: the intricacy and figural richness of the fringe signaled the hours invested and, by extension, the dignity of the wearer. The natural indigo palette, the butterfly-field ikat, the leaping-figure band, and the camelid-and-flora fleco all align with documented Gualaceo production conventions, making this a canonical rather than idiosyncratic expression of the tradition.
Provenance: ex-private Moore collection, Denver, Colorado, USA, acquired prior to 1990
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Item #
201442
- Condition: Excellent. Some minor pulling and fraying in areas, commensurate with age. Otherwise, intact and excellent.
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