Bidspirit auction | Guna Mola Panel With Festival

Guna Mola Panel With Festival Musicians and Spirit Creatures - Panama (Guna Yala), circa 1970s 13 × 16 inches Boldly worked reverse appliqué mola panel featuring two large mirror-image festival musicians facing one another, each crowned with a splayed monstera leaf headdress rendered in black, orange, yellow, and blue cotton. The figures hold instruments and are dressed in striped regalia, their bodies densely filled with polychrome running stitch. Three spirit creatures animate the composition: one presiding between the musicians in the upper central field, one small figure at center bottom, and a third at lower left. Executed in three layers of red, black, and orange cotton with extensive applied appliqué passages and polychrome embroidery throughout. A similar photo of this mola can be found on page 76 of MOLAS Folk Art of the Cuna Indians by Parker and Neal. Provenance: From the Parker & Neal Collection.