wearing blanket

unrecorded Ndebele artist, artist

wearing blanket, 1960–1982

Where object was made: Transvaal Province, Union of South Africa (present-day Mpumalanga province, South Africa)

Material/technique: beading; wool; weaving; dyeing

Dimensions:
Object Height/Width (Height x Width): 149 x 149 cm
Object Height/Width (Height x Width): 58 11/16 x 58 11/16 in

Credit line: Gift of Reinhild Janzen

Accession number: 2007.6962

Not on display

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Label texts

Collection Cards: Places

The colors and designs on this blanket tell the story of a new place and new traditions created by Ndebele women in South Africa. In the late 1800s, the British forced the Ndebele peoples to move to farms. Ndebele women began painting their houses with colorful murals. They began a beautiful art tradition during a difficult time.

This wearing blanket would have been worn for the first time on a young woman’s wedding day. The colors on the blanket echo the colors on the woman’s house. The shapes in the thick beaded panels represent Ndebele homes. Find the houses on the blanket.

Think of three things that remind you of home. What words describe home for you? What colors in your life have special meaning? What colors make you think of a particular place?

Spencer Museum of Art Highlights

In the late 19th century, British colonizers forcibly displaced many Ndebele communities from their lands in South Africa’s Transvaal region and resettled them on nearby European-run farms, where they worked as indentured laborers. Divested of their native architectural traditions, Ndebele women pioneered a new practice: painting their prefabricated houses with vibrant murals that make skillful use of line, color, and contrast. The intricate beadwork embellishing this wool blanket and delicate nyoga—both worn for the first time on a young woman’s wedding day—draw from this new tradition. The soothing palette of blue, green, and violet punctuated by inky black and crisp white echoes the particular color scheme of the wearer’s painted house. The architectural reference is furthered by the thick beaded panels on the blanket, which feature stylized concrete facades of newer Ndebele homes.

Google Art Project

Roots and Journeys: Encountering Global Arts and Cultures

In the late 1800s, British colonizers forcibly displaced many Ndebele communities from their lands in South Africa’s Transvaal region and resettled them on nearby European-run farms, where they worked as indentured laborers. Divested of their native architectural traditions, Ndebele women pioneered a new practice: painting their prefabricated houses with vibrant murals that make skillful use of line, color, and contrast. The intricate beadwork embellishing this wool blanket and delicate nyoga - both worn for the first time on a young woman’s wedding day -draw from this new tradition. The soothing palette of blue, green, and violet punctuated by inky black and crisp white echoes the particular color scheme of the wearer’s painted house. The architectural reference is furthered by the thick beaded panels on the blanket, which feature stylized concrete facades of newer Ndebele homes.

Roots and Journeys: Encountering Global Arts and Cultures

Exhibition Label:
"Roots and Journeys: Encountering Global Arts and Cultures," Jun-2013, Cassandra Mesick
In the late 1800s, British colonizers forcibly displaced many Ndebele communities from their lands in South Africa’s Transvaal region and resettled them on nearby European-run farms, where they worked as indentured laborers. Divested of their native architectural traditions, Ndebele women pioneered a new practice: painting their prefabricated houses with vibrant murals that make skillful use of line, color, and contrast. The intricate beadwork embellishing this wool blanket and delicate nyoga - both worn for the first time on a young woman’s wedding day -draw from this new tradition. The soothing palette of blue, green, and violet punctuated by inky black and crisp white echoes the particular color scheme of the wearer’s painted house. The architectural reference is furthered by the thick beaded panels on the blanket, which feature stylized concrete facades of newer Ndebele homes.

Exhibition Label:
"For Life's Sake: Arts from Africa," Oct-1983, Reinhild Kauenhoven Janzen
At the time of her marriage, the Ndebele woman wears, for the first time, a splendidly beaded blanket. The colors are chosen to harmonize with those of her house. The blanket is usually folded along one of its long sides, then draped under the one arm and pinned at the other shoulder, so that the stripes which border the short sides fall together. Beaded blankets can weigh as much as ten pounds and require regal bearing of the wearer.

Incorporated into the bold geometric patterns are repeated sylized motifs of houses with door, windows, and electric lights. This blanket features the house-and-walled-compound motif, complete with electric light fixtures, in the center of the two top beaded panels, and as a repeat pattern on the more narrow bottom panel.