“T” is for Cumbi Tapestries: Peruvian Textiles in the Spanish Colonial Home. Julia McHugh, Douglass Foundation Fellow in American Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Textiles dominate the pages of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Peruvian inventories, dowries, receipts between merchants, and appraisals. In almost all cases, textiles, silver, and jewelry are assigned the highest prices and given the most detailed written attention in archival documents. Even with the introduction of other art forms, like painting, in the colonial period, textiles maintained a privileged position as luxury goods. Dowry from Cusco, Peru, 1703. Archivo Regional de Cusco, ..