Yoruba Handwoven Aso Oke Textile Nigeria 69x57 Inch Sidley Collection

The Yoruba people of Nigeria, Benin, and Togo have centuries of rich cultural heritage. Despite enduring exploitation during the Slave Trade, they maintained a robust set of beliefs and rituals, often expressed through art forms such as sculpture, mask-making, textiles, beadwork, and pottery. Yoruba art is esteemed for its beauty, craftsmanship, and cultural significance, often depicting figures from Yoruba mythology and religion. Beadwork holds particular importance in Yoruba religious practices, especially in divination ceremonies conducted by trained intermediaries known as diviners. Beadwork panels are intricately designed with symbolic meanings, serving as spiritual tools and symbols of the diviner's connection to the divine realm. While beadwork and divination are prominent aspects of Yoruba culture, variations exist among different lineages and communities.

Provenance: Niña Sidley Collection

After a long career in publishing, Niña Sidley returned to her first love: collecting the art, artifacts, and textiles of the world’s indigenous peoples. Part of her mission has been to educate others and to honor the extraordinary creativity, ingenuity, and heartfelt messages these handmade works send from their makers. Niña believes this deep respect for tradition and beauty inspires and ties all of us together as one world.

We do not recommend laundering textiles and do not accept returns of textiles that have been laundered in any manner. Even dry cleaning is too much for some of these antique textiles. For some of them, a very gentle HAND washing (NEVER MACHINE, on any setting) in cool water with a very gentle detergent works, but even then, dyes may not be colorfast, and fabric may be less strong than it appears.

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