Tigua Painting

Tigua painting depicting two Inca women weaving. The canvas of the painting is formed by a piece of skin stretched and nailed over a wooden frame. The sky serves as the background of the image. It is painted in a gradient with various shades of blue, the lightest shade at the top of the image and the darkest shade along the horizon. There is a large dark blue mountain against the horizon. It has snow and a smiling face at its peak. There are also rolling green hills in the background. On the right side of the image, there is a stone hut with a yellow thatched roof. A small piece of weaving with a blue, red, pink and yellow pattern is hanging from a string in the doorway of the hut. A woman kneels in the alcove of the hut. She wears a simple headdress with yellow and red feathers and an embroidered band; a blue dress with elaborate embroidery at the waist, sleeves, neckline and hem; gold earrings with red stones; and a necklace with white beads that may be teeth. In her left hand, the woman is holding a brown spool with white thread around it. She feeds the thread into her right hand which forms two wrapped balls of thread. Left of the woman in the blue dress is a red ball of thread. Further left, there is another woman who kneels before a loom. The woman wears a simple headdress with red and blue feathers and an embroidered band; a yellow dress with elaborate embroidery at the neckline, sleeves, waist and hem; gold earrings; and a necklace possibly made of teeth. There is a red belt around the woman’s back that attaches her to the loom. The loom has wooden braces at the top and bottom; the top brace is tied around the branch of a tree and the bottom brace is attached to the red belt around the woman. The braces pull the textile taut. In each of her hands, the woman holds a curved wooden stick. The textile has vertical stripes in a rainbow pattern. Around the women’s work area, there are green plants with pink, yellow, orange and red flowers. Written in the bottom left corner in white paint are the artist’s community, name and title of the work. On the back of the wooden frame, there is a piece of tape with a number and the size of the work written in blue felt. A red string for hanging the painting is affixed to the left and right side of the object so that it hangs across the back.