This iconic Natural History museum located on Central Park West in Manhattan, boasts thousands of textiles in its collection. My observation is that the collection is quite large and broad in scope, but their website (http://www.amnh.org/) somehow made me think, or I wanted to believe, that textiles were a separate collection. So, I was confused when the map of the museum showed no area labeled “textiles”. I asked several museum employees and realized that textiles are scattered amongst different sub-collections.
The Museum is broken up into areas of animal science, human anthropology and earth science. Textiles are amongst the anthropology sections broken up by areas of the globe with labels like: “African Peoples”, “Asian Peoples” and “Mexican and Central America” Each area contains artifacts and relics from those areas over history. All of the anthropology areas house beautiful textiles amongst the other art, pottery and relics of those cultures. I saw exhibits showing how textiles were used and worked into the daily, celebratory and ritualistic culture of various peoples over time. Many textiles appear to be modern copies of what was used; the fact that textiles often degrade over time means that these copies were probably made using cues from other art forms and looking backward using materials that were available and textile forms known to be extant in the culture of the time.
One museum employee told me that the bulk of the textile collection was in the South American and Mexican area. She was right. This was the only area where much was said about the textiles themselves. Different sorts of weaving were discussed with diagrams explaining “plain weave”, “looping” and other weaving forms. Burial clothes dating from were labeled and diagrams described what could be seen by experts as having been woven into these largely decayed relics. I would never have observed these images myself so the diagrams were quite helpful. Costumes from all over Asia, including Armenia, India, China and Tibet were seen throughout the exhibits. Some were obviously originals – others appeared to be copies but none were labeled either way.
The details of the textiles, fiber content, weave, derivation of raw materials and possible identity of the weaver, were limited. A few noted that they were cotton or wool – no mention was made of the origin of these fibers in that area, however. The African collection boasted differences between different geographical areas of that continent; for instance, it was noted that bast fibers or other native plants – like banana fronds or grasses were used in some areas and other locally found fibers used at other sites. There were some examples of locally used looms and pictures of how weaving was done and by whom, by those were few.
What did I like about the exhibit? There is broad diversity about textiles here. From African ceremonial dresses made of banana fronds to fine silks from Asia – from burial clothes found in ancient graves to more traditional cloth made by modern made by South American natives today. AMNH shows textiles in the framework of the anthropology of cultures – not as a distinct area. There is relatively little discussion of the derivation of fibers and weaves.
If you want to view textiles within the framework of overall culture, this is an interesting collection. However, if you want to compare and contrast the textiles of different peoples in different times, you must make these distinctions yourself. As a fiber junkie, I would enjoy more detail and insight into the derivation and production of the textiles shown. However, for a global view of textiles in their cultural context, the AMNH has a lot to offer.
