The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of April 19, 2024
Woman's Skirt
late 1800s–about 1906–12
Overall: 73.7 x 102.9 cm (29 x 40 1/2 in.)
Alma Kroeger Fund 2013.5
Location: not on view
Did You Know?
The diamond motifs on this skirt have symbolic and cosmological links to lizards (mbil), an animal associated with matrilineal (female descent) clans.Description
Mbuun men wove and embroidered wrap skirts like this for women to wear on special occasions. Gently color-shifted patterns (lubawa) along the central panels were achieved by “floating” wefts (selectively covering over vertical, or warp, threads with horizontal, or weft, threads). In contrast, various black-brown embroidered diamonds cover the borders. These are called lobubasa, motifs also seen on cicatrices (ornamental scars) that once beautified women’s bodies. Short tufts running horizontally and vertically across the textile were created by inserting extra fibers, then cutting and fluffing them with a knife. These add texture and hide the seams between woven panels.- collected c. 1896-1906Emile Lejeune by field collection in the Belgian Congo?-until 2011Lejeune family by descent2013(Andres Moraga Textile Art, San Francisco, CA, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)2013-Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
- Picton, John, and John Mack. African Textiles. London: Published for the Trustees of the British Museum by British Museum Publications, 1989. p.199-200Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 41
- Stories From Storage. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 7-May 16, 2021).African art rotation. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 5, 2018-February 19, 2019).
- {{cite web|title=Woman's Skirt|url=false|author=|year=late 1800s–about 1906–12|access-date=19 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2013.5