Unidentified artist
Coca Bag (Ch’uspa) Fragment with Birds, Animals, and Floral and Geometric Patterns (Fragmento de bolsa de coca [ch’uspa] con motivos animales, florales y geométricos)late 16th-early 17th century

Not on view

Flat-weave textile fragment with horizontal bands featuring stylized animals, scrolling vines, geometric diamonds, and rosette flowers in crimson, navy, gold, and ivory

Kilim textile fragment with flat-woven bands in red, navy, ivory, and gold; a wide central field filled with rosette motifs alternates with geometric border bands featuring hourglass and stepped diamond forms; fringe visible on left edge.

Artist or Maker: Unidentified artist
Title: Coca Bag (Ch’uspa) Fragment with Birds, Animals, and Floral and Geometric Patterns (Fragmento de bolsa de coca [ch’uspa] con motivos animales, florales y geométricos)
Place Made: Peru
Date Made: late 16th-early 17th century
Medium: Cotton and camelid-fiber tapestry weave
Dimensions: 35 1/8 × 14 3/8 in. (89.2 × 36.5 cm)
Credit Line: Los Angeles County Fund
Accession Number: 70.3.2
Classification: Costumes
Collecting Area: Costume and Textiles
Curatorial Notes: This rectangular cloth appears to be a fragment but is, in fact, a complete panel designed to be folded horizontally in the center and sewn along the sides to create a bag. Such bags held coca leaves, which were consumed to relieve symptoms caused by the high altitude of the Andes, as well as offered in ceremonial contexts. Bags were also a frequent accessory of Inka coyas (queens). The exuberant design of tocapu (geometric motifs associated with the elite), animals, leaves, and feathers suggests that this example belonged to a woman of noble Inka heritage.

Ilona Katzew

2024
Provenance: Private collection, Huancavelica, Peru, 1969; Arts of the Four Quarters Ltd., New York, 1970; LACMA, 1970.
Selected Bibliography: Katzew, Ilona, ed. Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800: Highlights from LACMA’s Collection. Exh. Cat. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York: DelMonico Books/D.A.P., 2022.
Selected Exhibition History: Contested Visions in the Spanish Colonial World. November 6, 2011 - January 29, 2012
Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. June 12, 2022 - October 30, 2022
Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. October 20, 2023 - January 28, 2024
Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. June 22, 2024 - September 08, 2024

Related Exhibitions

Unidentified artist
Coca Bag (Ch’uspa) Fragment with Birds, Animals, and Floral and Geometric Patterns (Fragmento de bolsa de coca [ch’uspa] con motivos animales, florales y geométricos)late 16th-early 17th century

Not on view

Artist or Maker: Unidentified artist
Title: Coca Bag (Ch’uspa) Fragment with Birds, Animals, and Floral and Geometric Patterns (Fragmento de bolsa de coca [ch’uspa] con motivos animales, florales y geométricos)
Place Made: Peru
Date Made: late 16th-early 17th century
Medium: Cotton and camelid-fiber tapestry weave
Dimensions: 35 1/8 × 14 3/8 in. (89.2 × 36.5 cm)
Credit Line: Los Angeles County Fund
Accession Number: 70.3.2
Classification: Costumes
Collecting Area: Costume and Textiles
Curatorial Notes: This rectangular cloth appears to be a fragment but is, in fact, a complete panel designed to be folded horizontally in the center and sewn along the sides to create a bag. Such bags held coca leaves, which were consumed to relieve symptoms caused by the high altitude of the Andes, as well as offered in ceremonial contexts. Bags were also a frequent accessory of Inka coyas (queens). The exuberant design of tocapu (geometric motifs associated with the elite), animals, leaves, and feathers suggests that this example belonged to a woman of noble Inka heritage.

Ilona Katzew

2024
Provenance: Private collection, Huancavelica, Peru, 1969; Arts of the Four Quarters Ltd., New York, 1970; LACMA, 1970.
Selected Bibliography: Katzew, Ilona, ed. Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800: Highlights from LACMA’s Collection. Exh. Cat. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York: DelMonico Books/D.A.P., 2022.
Selected Exhibition History: Contested Visions in the Spanish Colonial World. November 6, 2011 - January 29, 2012
Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. June 12, 2022 - October 30, 2022
Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. October 20, 2023 - January 28, 2024
Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. June 22, 2024 - September 08, 2024