The central panel of the saint’s robes shows gentle fabric folds exquisitely hand painted in natural vegetable dyes.

The outer robe texture was achieved picking and pecking away at dark stained wood to reveal the lighter wood underneath, the same techniques the Indians would have used before the Jesuits came, and which they continue to use today.

And the same as to North American Indian people would have used for the ancient pictographs found on rocks all over that continent ( and indeed on all continents ) the style of design and the degree of detail however is almost certainly imported and imposed on the native carvers of C16th.

Awe inspiring. 

I hope I am not boring the thingies off people with this stuff but I adored it. Not being RC myself, and coming from a much younger country in terms of european settlement and the church influences that brought, it also probably shows that I have not travelled much in europe – where I imagine things like this are well known…but heck, as I say, I love this stuff.

But here is another beautifully carved wooden statue ( with a nice large hollow cavity accessible from behind)

the textiles represnted on htis figure are superb and warrant a close up view. 

The lace pulled back revealed the interwoven/laced rawhide thonging that formed the support for the sleeper’s mattress or palliasse.

The lace holes are MOL 1cm dimension. 

In one of the small museums was this antique bed, rather awkwardly photographed through the bedroom door but there was no other way to catch any impression of the lace cover .

We saw a lot of this lace, but didn’t buy any. Which is not to say it was not beautiful but because of its guage IMHO is a bit limited to decorative table cloths and covers such as this, and you do see a fair bit as curtains. There is a fair bit of clothing featuring this lace, but even as cap sleeves or appliqued sections it seemed to be catch any jewellery I was wearing so I didnt buy any. 

In the town of Itaugua where we dropped a few dollars on Nanduti lace, this piece was in the process of being finished off – some kind of edging to be worked around all those units on the edge… which is quite long – this commissioned cloth is almost 5m long by nearly 3 wide, and represents about 6 months’ work by the several people who made the inset units and the edging, set the pieces in to a nice quality cotton fabric and did the final finishing steps culminating in washing, starching and ironing.

The work, fine but not the finest we saw, is in about #8 cotton. Too big a piece to make on spec for tourists, this piece would have been ordered by people whom our guide described as newly rich who are wanting all the trappings of old money – as soon as it can be made/purchased/commissioned, to go in large new fancy homes. The cost will be about US$650. Something similar in the very finest work we saw could cost several thou.US$. Either would look marvellous on a large table in a large room.