{
"data": {
"id": 171076,
"accession_number": "2013.5",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Woman's Skirt, late 1800s\u2013about 1906\u201312. Africa, Central Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mbuun-style weavers and embroiderers. Raffia palm fiber (Raphia ruffia or R. vinifera) and dye; overall: 73.7 x 102.9 cm (29 x 40 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Alma Kroeger Fund, 2013.5",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Woman's Skirt",
"creation_date": "late 1800s\u2013about 1906\u201312",
"creation_date_earliest": 1875,
"creation_date_latest": 1917,
"artists_tags": [],
"culture": [
"Africa, Central Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mbuun-style weavers and embroiderers"
],
"technique": "Raffia palm fiber (Raphia ruffia or R. vinifera) and dye",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "African Art",
"collection": "African Art",
"type": "Garment",
"measurements": "Overall: 73.7 x 102.9 cm (29 x 40 1/2 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"overall": {
"height": 0.737,
"width": 1.029
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 387021,
"title": "African art rotation",
"description": "African art rotation. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 5, 2018-February 19, 2019).",
"opening_date": "2018-03-05T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 383281,
"title": "Stories from Storage",
"description": "Stories from Storage. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 7-May 16, 2021).",
"opening_date": "2021-02-06T05:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": []
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Emile Lejeune by field collection in the Belgian Congo",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "collected c. 1896-1906",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "Lejeune family by descent",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "?-until 2011",
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "(Andres Moraga Textile Art, San Francisco, CA, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "2013",
"sortorder": 3
},
{
"description": "Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "2013-",
"sortorder": 4
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "The diamond motifs on this skirt have symbolic and cosmological links to lizards (mbil), an animal associated with matrilineal (female descent) clans.",
"description": "Mbuun men wove and embroidered wrap skirts like this for women to wear on special occasions. Gently color-shifted patterns (lubawa) along the central panels were achieved by \u201cfloating\u201d wefts (selectively covering over vertical, or warp, threads with horizontal, or weft, threads). In contrast, various black-brown embroidered diamonds cover the borders. These are called lobubasa, motifs also seen on cicatrices (ornamental scars) that once beautified women\u2019s bodies. Short tufts running horizontally and vertically across the textile were created by inserting extra fibers, then cutting and fluffing them with a knife. These add texture and hide the seams between woven panels.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60748999"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-2013.5-woman-s-skirt"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Picton, John, and John Mack. African Textiles. London: Published for the Trustees of the British Museum by British Museum Publications, 1989.",
"page_number": "p.199-200",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: P. 41",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Petridis, Constantine. \u201c2013 Acquisitions: African Art.\u201d Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 54, no. 2 (March/April 2014): 22.",
"page_number": "Reproduced and Mentioned: p. 22",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMM2014-02"
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/2013.5",
"images": {
"annotation": null,
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2013.5/2013.5_web.jpg",
"width": "1263",
"height": "880",
"filesize": "277345",
"filename": "2013.5_web.jpg"
},
"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2013.5/2013.5_print.jpg",
"width": "3400",
"height": "2369",
"filesize": "2442272",
"filename": "2013.5_print.jpg"
},
"full": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2013.5/2013.5_full.tif",
"width": "7798",
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},
"alternate_images": [
{
"date_created": "2013-04-08T19:40:28",
"annotation": "",
"web": {
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],
"creditline": "Alma Kroeger Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 171076,
"creators": [],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "2013-03-04T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1875,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "late 1800s\u2013about 1906\u201312",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "object",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-03-27 00:09:56.951000"
}
}