Hanging (?) Fragment late 16th–17th century Peruvian This lively and colorful fragment was once part of a large, tapestry-woven table cover, bed cover, or wall hanging. Its size, proportions, and basic organization may have been similar to the large Peruvian tapestry with figurative scenes in the collection of the Metropolitan (). The composition of the fragment consists of a series of major and minor borders, separated by guard stripes. Throughout, red is the predominant color; this is typical of Andean textiles both before and after the sixteenth-century Spanish invasion, and was proba

Hanging (?) Fragment late 16th–17th century Peruvian This lively and colorful fragment was once part of a large, tapestry-woven table cover, bed cover, or wall hanging. Its size, proportions, and basic organization may have been similar to the large Peruvian tapestry with figurative scenes in the collection of the Metropolitan (). The composition of the fragment consists of a series of major and minor borders, separated by guard stripes. Throughout, red is the predominant color; this is typical of Andean textiles both before and after the sixteenth-century Spanish invasion, and was probably achieved through the use of dye extracted from cochineal, an indigenous American insect. Off-white, yellow, blue, green, and purple also appear. The fragment’s outermost minor border consists of a red ground decorated with off-white, oblong scallop designs meant to imitate bobbin or needle lace (bobbin lace is made by braiding and twisting together lengths of thread, usually linen or silk, wound onto bobbins, while needle lace is made using a needle and thread). The interior of each scallop has a purple ground with an ornament, in red outlined with white, reminiscent of a fleur-de-lis. In the interstices of the scallops are flora and fauna native to the Andes: yellow and light-blue ñucchu flowers (members of the Salvia genus), viscachas (Andean rodents that are part of the chinchilla family), and, along the warp heading, a bird. Red ñucchu flowers, including Salvia tubiflora Smith and Salvia dombeyi Epl, were sacred to the Inca; both Salvia dombeyi Epl and another red ñucchu, Salvia oppositiflora Ruiz and Pávon, have been used in Holy Week and Corpus Christi processions in Peru and Bolivia since the viceregal period (the mid-sixteenth century to the early nineteenth century). There are several related Andean Salvia species with blue flowers, though they have no known ceremonial or sacred uses. The weaver probably intended to evoke red ñucchu flowers, choosing non-s

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