Textile with a Forested Landscape

Unknown artist

One of the finest surviving examples of its type, this spectacular full-length cloth is composed of a series of stylized but still identifiable interlocking trees that form a densely forested landscape. A number of Indonesian communities prized these textiles, including the Toraja of central highland Sulawesi, who refer to them as Maa’, or cloths of the ancestors. The late fourteenth- to early fifteenth-century date of this piece demonstrates that the trade in Gujarati-painted and printed cotton goods to Indonesian markets was well established long before the Portuguese arrived in India.cat. no. 3b