Kuna Mola 1960s - Kit Kapp Collection - Complete Blouse Animal Scene

Description

This is a complete piece of clothing in very good condition, featuring two molas. Both Molas feature animals hunting. The front molas features a bird with a red worm in his mouth, he is surrounded by lots of other birds as well. On the back mola a lizard or perhaps and alligator has captured a rodent for its diner, other similar rodent critters surround the lizard. This mola is in very good condition for a whole blouse which is unusual to find. Each mola is 18w x 13.5h, this piece was made in the 1960s.
The Kit Kapp Collection.
Kit Kapp was a cartographer who was hired to map the San Blas Islands in 1960. He quickly fell in love with the Kuna people and their art, and organized numerous lengthy expeditions to the islands over an 11 year period where he purchased thousands of molas and hundreds of Kuna nuchu carvings, as well as jewelry, basketry and other artifacts. In 1972 he published the seminal book
Mola Art of the San Blas Islands,
which is still one of the best reference books on the subject. Kit died in 2014. Between 1999 and 2016 we purchased the entire remainder of the Kapp Kuna collection.