The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

Sleeved tunic laid flat with rectangular sleeves jutting out at the sides and a narrow "v"-shaped slit in the middle. Alternating vertical bands of medium-brown and a serrated spiral pattern interlocking in muted light pink, cream, and shades of green run across the tunic. At the base of each band, a pattern like the silhouette of three steps cuts in, connecting to a cream band and switching directions at the center.

Sleeved Tunic

1460s–1532

Central Andes, central coast, Chancay people

Cotton, camelid fiber
length back of neck to hem: 40.6 cm (16 in.); width across shoulders: 128.9 cm (50 3/4 in.)
Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund 2017.193
Location: 232 Andean

Description

The Chancay (chan-kai) people of Peru’s central coast created one of the ancient Andes’s best-known textile legacies through artistically elaborate men’s tunics and loin cloths, women’s dresses and headcloths, and shawl-like mantles. Two traits indicate that this tunic is a high-prestige garment: its labor-intensive tapestry-woven technique and its substantial use of alpaca fiber imported from the adjacent highlands.
  • Bergh, Susan E. “Acquisition Highlights: Pre-Columbian Art.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 58, no. 2 (March/April 2018): 8-9. Reproduced and Mentioned: P. 9 archive.org
  • Ancient Andean Textiles. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 14, 2024-December 14, 2025).
    Gallery 232- Andean Textile Rotation. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 28, 2018-August 26, 2019).
  • {{cite web|title=Sleeved Tunic|url=false|author=|year=1460s–1532|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2017.193