Coca Bag

Inca · 1476-1532

Medium

Oil on canvas

Original size

44.5 × 16.5 cm (17 1/2 × 6 1/2 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Italian Renaissance

This Inca coca bag, dating from the height of the Tawantinsuyu empire between 1476 and 1532, is a small object carrying enormous cultural weight — its geometric patterns woven with a precision that speaks to a civilisation that encoded meaning into every thread. Coca leaves were sacred in Andean life, used in ritual offerings, divination, and as a gift to Pachamama, the earth mother. The bags that carried them, known as chuspas, were never purely functional. Their bold, interlocking motifs reflect the Inca mastery of textile arts — a tradition so refined that woven cloth was considered more valuable than gold within the empire. The symmetry and colour relationships in surviving examples like this one suggest their makers worked within strict iconographic conventions that conveyed identity, status, and spiritual alignment. Coca bags were among the objects buried with the dead and presented at state ceremonies, making each surviving piece a direct thread to Andean cosmology before European contact. The hand-painted oil reproduction translates the flat geometry of the original textile into the warmth and depth of painted surface, preserving the commanding rhythm of its design while bringing it into a medium that allows the detail and colour relationships to read clearly at any scale.