Traditional Textiles of the Andes features eighteenth-, nineteenth-, and twentieth-century indigenous textiles woven by the Aymara and Quechua. The elaborately patterned pieces are all drawn from the previously unpublished and remarkable Jeffrey Appleby Collection and include everyday and ceremonial textiles of all types - ponchos, skirts, belts, hats, slings.

The accompanying essays by Lynn A. Meisch, Amy Oakland Rodman, Ed Franquemont, Margot Blum Schevill and Barbara Arthur address such topics as the long history of fibers, dyes, imagery, and textile use in the region; and the effects of urbanization and westernization on traditional Andean weaving. Texts and photographs together reflect textile arts that are both a primary source for the study of the communities that made them and a triumph of design, color, and imagery.