Coca Bag

Inca · 1476-1532

Medium

Oil on canvas

Original size

44.5 × 15.2 cm (17 1/2 × 6 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Italian Renaissance

This small Inca textile, woven with extraordinary precision during the height of the Andean empire, carries a significance far beyond its modest size — coca bags like this one were objects of ceremony, identity, and spiritual meaning. The Inca were among the most accomplished weavers in the pre-Columbian world, and their textiles functioned as a primary form of record-keeping, tribute, and ritual expression. Known as chuspas, coca bags were used to carry the sacred coca leaf, which played a central role in Inca religious life, diplomatic exchange, and everyday endurance at high altitude. The geometric patterning typical of these objects — bold interlocking forms in contrasting colours — reflects a textile tradition governed by strict symbolic conventions rather than individual artistic invention. Coca itself was so valued in Andean society that it was offered to the sun god Inti and distributed by rulers as a mark of honour and authority. This hand-painted oil reproduction translates the visual language of the original — its disciplined geometry, rich earthen palette, and deceptive complexity — onto canvas, allowing the ceremonial power of the object to be experienced on a different but equally intimate scale.