Details

Title

Cloth (Aso Ofi)

Artist/Maker

Yoruba Artist (Nigeria)

Date

ca. 1900–1925

Medium

Cotton and indigo

Dimensions

61 x 82 inches

Credit

Purchase with Fred and Rita Richman Special Initiatives Endowment Fund for African Art

Accession #

2005.187

On View

Currently not on view

This finely woven cloth is deeply saturated with indigo, a natural dye made from a wild plant used to color cloth blue throughout much of sub Saharan West Africa for at least 1,000 years. It was woven on an upright loom by a female weaver. In the past such cloths were worn by chiefs throughout the western Yoruba region as a sign of political office.

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