Department ofArt History

17th century dictionaries of the Andean languages of Quechua and Aymara produced by Spanish authorities in Peru and Bolivia, included terms for special textiles, such as Lipi or Tornesol, representing shiny or resplendent cloth. We do not know exactly how these textiles were made in the early colonial era, but find evidence of shimmering and brilliant cloth in the traditions of the highland weavers of the Southern Andes. Sometimes using gold, silver and silk threads, which have a natural shine to them, the majority of these fabrics appear to be woven solely of fine camelid hair, and so requires other actions in order to create the qualities of brilliance. This lecture will explore the ways in which these shimmering cloths manifest and look closely at how they were physically constructed, while contextualizing the significance of brilliance in Andean culture through concepts such as illa, or the value of things.

Elena Phipps, PhD in Precolumbian Art History and Archaeology, was Senior Museum Conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for 34 years. During her tenure at the Met, she co-curated and co-authored the award-winning exhibition The Colonial Andes: Tapestries and Silverwork 1430-1830 (MMA and Yale Univ Press 2003) and the Interwoven Globe: Worldwide Textile Trade (MMA, 2013). Elena has many publications on colors, dyes, textiles, and culture, including Cochineal Red (MMA 2010) and Looking at Textiles (Getty, 2013).  Her research focuses on the intersection of material, materiality and culture. Her recent publication Woven Brilliance: Approaching Color in Andean Textile Traditions (Textile Museum Journal, 2021) is the subject of her current lecture. She was President of the Textile Society of America from 2010 to 2014, and has been teaching textile materials, techniques and history since 2011, at the University of California, Los Angeles.