Ceremonial Cloth and Sacred Heirloom, Maá

Coromandel Coast, India, traded to the Toraja region, Sulawesi, Indonesia
Cotton; mordant painting, mordant printing, batik
17th / 18th Century
154 x 52 in / 391 x 132 cm
Price on request / SOLD

This extraordinary textile is almost unique, with only one other example known featuring this special iconography.  Its pendant is in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia and served as the title page for the major publication, Life, Death and Magic, 2000 Years of Southeast Asian Art. The decorative elements include trees, great leaves, water buffalo ears floating above a pool, and a mysterious pyramid of six circles in a rectangle of buffalo footprints.