Rug and Textile Appreciation Morning: Costumes and Featherwork of the Lords of Chimor
Virtual and In Person, Saturday, May 10, 2025, 11-12 p.m. EDT
Tunic (detail), Peru, Late Intermediate Period. The Textile Museum Collection 91.729A. Acquired by George Hewitt Myers in 1957.
As part of a series of 2025 programs that revisit groundbreaking exhibitions of The Textile Museum’s 100-year history, retired curator Ann P. Rowe revisits the themes and scholarly impact of her 1984 exhibition and catalog Costumes and Featherwork of the Lords of Chimor: Textiles from Peru’s North Coast. Rowe’s groundbreaking research filled a critical gap in our understanding by distinguishing these textiles from others found along Peru’s coast and organizing them into a chronological sequence. This timeline begins around 1250, continuing through the Inca Empire from approximately the 1460s to the 1530s, and into the early Spanish colonial period.
The Textile Museum holds an outstanding collection of Chimu textiles and featherwork, with examples collected by founder George Hewitt Myers and, later, by director Alan R. Sawyer in the 1960s. Several remarkable matched garment sets formed the foundation of Rowe’s chronology. During the talk, she will highlight select featherwork examples on display in the museum’s centennial exhibition Intrinsic Beauty: Celebrating the Art of Textiles.
This program is presented as part of The Textile Museum’s centennial celebrations in 2025.
About Ann P. Rowe
Ann Pollard Rowe spent most of her career as curator of Western Hemisphere Textiles at The Textile Museum and now serves as a research associate. She has curated numerous exhibitions and authored catalog for Warp-Patterned Weaves of the Andes, A Century of Change in Guatemalan Textiles, Costumes and Featherwork of the Lords of Chimor and Hidden Threads of Peru: Q’ero Textiles (with John Cohen). Additionally, she co-authored and edited three books on Ecuadorian textiles. Her books and many articles explore the stylistic development, techniques and structures of both archaeological and ethnographic textiles of Latin America.
How to Participate
This program will be in a hybrid format. You can join us in person at the museum or watch the livestream online. Please register in advance and choose how you would like to participate. We will email virtual attendees a link and instructions for joining via Zoom. When you register, you can also request to receive a reminder email one day before the program with the link included.
About Rug and Textile Appreciation Mornings
Collectors and experts discuss textile topics and display examples from their personal holdings. This series is named in honor of late Textile Museum trustee emeritus, Harold M. Keshishian. Browse upcoming programs