Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art

About this Work

Wax-print textiles designed to commemorate specific events, people, or places act as historical records of particular circumstances or occasions that led to their production. The popular textile company Uniwax made this cloth design in honor of the Basilica Notre-Dame-de-la-Paix, a significant religious landmark completed in 1989 in Yamoussoukro, Côte d’Ivoire.

Dating to the late nineteenth century, African wax-prints illustrate the global connectivity of textile design, production, and trade from Indonesian batik cloth influences and European manufacture for consumers in sub-Saharan Africa. This cloth exemplifies a significant production change in the industry: Uniwax has been active in Côte d’Ivoire since 1968, coinciding with the expansion of wax-print production in Africa during the mid-twentieth century.