Wrapper

Hadja Baratou Diallo is a well-known indigo cloth dyer in Guinea, where her exquisite cloths stand out among those made by other dyers active in the area where she works. Diallo’s innovative work points to how women cloth makers intervene in textile practices in ways that both follow broader practices and depart from them to reflect the artist’s individuality. She designed this cloth in a pattern called siiti damier that refers to the cloth’s checkerboard stitches.

Women cloth dyers working in Guinea during the late twentieth century have made indigo-dyed cloths, called gudhe ngara in Guinea, using a combination of local natural indigo and imported indigo materials. This combination points to the role of trade to inform new approaches and shifting technologies in cloth making, building on the increasing presence of plain imported fabrics across West Africa during the twentieth century.

Provenance research is ongoing for this and many other items in the Eskenazi Museum of Art permanent collection. For more information about the provenance of this artwork, please contact the department curator with specific questions.

Request this image
The Eskenazi Museum of Art provides images of its collection, free of charge, upon request.
This artwork is under copyright protection. You can request the image and it will be emailed to you when the request is complete.

Cite this page
"Wrapper | Collections Online." Collections Online. Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, 2025. https://artmuseum.indiana.edu/collections-online/browse/object.php?number=97.8