Kente Cloth
Asante Artist, Ghana
Details
Title
Kente Cloth
Artist/Maker
Asante Artist, Ghana
Date
ca. 1900–1925
Medium
Silk
Dimensions
38 1/2 x 55 1/2 inches
Credit
Purchase with funds from Fred and Rita Richman
Accession #
2004.166
Location
Currently not on view
The brilliantly colorful, geometric patterns of this silk kente cloth fragment express a highly refined, strongly musical aesthetic sensibility that is at once subtle and sublime. One red accent floats across a rich field of rhythmically complex patterns in yellow, green, blue, black, and white. An exceptionally fine example of kente cloth, this section is from a much larger cloth called oyokoman adweneasa. Oyokoman is the name of the striped pattern of the ground weave in the warp threads. Made primarily of wide, dark red stripes on this cloth, the oyokoman pattern is considered the first and most elite of all kente patterns and has the longest and most complex history.