Abkaou is a damask in silk and linen, woven as a kind of bas-relief: it depicts the cattle chief Abkaou and his wife receiving offerings, a scene taken from the limestone stele held in the Louvre's Department of Egyptian Antiquities. The weaving is fine enough to carry the emotion of the original carving — figures and offerings rendered in the play of warp against weft rather than in print. It is a museum piece translated into cloth, and it rewards the close attention it was made for.
