Ikat-dyed Blanket

Iban · 1875/1900

Medium

Oil on canvas

Original size

177.8 × 89.8 cm (70 × 35 3/8 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Realism

This richly patterned work offers a rare window into the textile traditions of the Iban people of Borneo, whose mastery of ikat dyeing produced some of the most visually commanding cloth in the ethnographic record. The Iban, indigenous to the rainforests of Sarawak, developed their ikat techniques over centuries, resist-binding threads before dyeing so that colour bleeds into precise, ceremonially charged forms. Their blankets — known as pua kumbu — were not decorative objects but living ones, used in ritual, healing, and the marking of life's significant transitions. The controlled complexity of the patterning, achieved entirely through hand-binding and natural dyes, reflects a technical tradition passed from mother to daughter across generations. The Art Institute of Chicago holds this piece as part of its broader collection of world textiles, recognising the pua kumbu as a serious artistic form rather than mere craft — a distinction that Western institutions were slow to extend to non-Western makers. The hand-painted oil reproduction translates the layered geometry and warm, vegetable-dyed palette of the original into a format that rewards living with it daily, preserving the depth and rhythm of the Iban tradition on canvas with the same careful attention the original weavers brought to every bound thread.