Lot 721
An African Adire Eleko Cotton Textile, 1941, Yoruba, Nigeria, two rectangular, resist-dyed indigo cloth panels sewn together at the center, cassava-paste painted in the olokun pattern with numerous squares illustrating "good and celebrated things in life", height 78 in., width 59 3/4 in., set with pole for hanging. Provenance: With Esther Warner Dendel, collected in Lagos, Nigeria, 1941; to Sotheby's, NY, May 14, 2004, lot 42; to current owner Illustrated: Sieber, African Textiles and Decorative Arts, 1972: 225, catalogue for the exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, October 11, 1972 - January 31, 1973. Note: The May 2004 Sotheby's note for this lot quotes the writings of Esther Dendel as follows: "In 1941, after zig-zagging across the Atlantic on a black-out ship, The Arcadia put in at Lagos, Nigeria. Most of the passengers, including myself, were bound for Liberia where we would live on the Firestone rubber plantation. Once ashore in Lagos, I was able to hire a bicycle and went exploring in the town in the hope of happening on a market selling fabrics. Without direction, I luckily blundered into a dye courtyard where half adozen women were busily dipping cloth in and then quickly out of smelly vats. Several lengths of blue cloth were dripping and drying from crossed clotheslines stretched across the area. I watched from the street until one...
Starting Bid: $1000
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