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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



distorted, indicates that they owe their 

 latest form to the desire on the artist's 

 part to produce a unit of design adapted 

 to artistic grouping of colors. It has 

 been the object to show color harmonies 

 rather than beauty of line. 



We are in the habit of seeing embroid- 

 ery stitches more or less uneven and not 

 following exact rules such as woven de- 

 signs create. Here however, each stitch 

 is the exact counterpart of every other 

 and the embroidery has been applied in 



such a way as to cover completely the 

 basic fabric. Embroidery in its freedom 

 from convention more nearly corresponds 

 to hand painting than does the woven 

 web, and this freedom has been taken 

 advantage of in these cloths. The basic 

 fabric under the embroidery in some 

 webs changes from a plain weave, which 

 is the background of the cloth, to a 

 gauze. The warps have been partially 

 twisted around one another and the 

 turns made constant by the insertion of 



To the custom of buryiiin willi the dead all unfinished work we are indebted for this example of weaving from 

 lea, Peru, shown just as it was taken from the loom many centuries ago. The skill of the Peruvian workers enabled 

 them to make embroidery (in wliich the decorative thread is applied to the finished fabric) which closely resembled 

 brocade (in wliich the decorative thread enters the design during the weaving), and this particular web cleared up 

 a difficult question as to whether certain fabrics were embroidered or brocaded. The fact that the decorative 

 thread is contained in the unfinished web proves this specimen to be brocade, and a comparison of this with other 

 fabrics has made details of difrerentiation fairly certain 



