Two panels for a huipil, probably not intended for the same huipil as there are marked differences in the size, design, threads and ground colour in each piece. These are expensive, well-woven panels made of the natural, undyed cotton known as Gossypium Mexicanum and decorated with a great number of different types of thread. They were woven on a backstrap loom and therefore have four selvedges each; in contrast to the red tzute displayed on the left (T.35-1931), the area of loosely packed weft is difficult to discern, it is about 1" from the lower edge.
The panel on the left (T.33-1931) is the most complex textile in the Maudslay Bequest: eleven different types of thread have been used to decorate it: red, yellow, light green and dark blue cotton, a little red wool, yellow floss silk (faded to cream), light blue, light purple, black and white floss silk and a tightly and regularly spun purple cotton (S3Z) which was undoubtedly machine-spun. Dye analysis has shown that the red cotton was dyed with Alizarin and the purple silk with cochineal. The machine-spun purple cotton was dyed with purpura patula, an expensive dye obtained from a shell-fish. Cohcineal had been used to dye the purple silk in this piece and in the headcloth displayed in the case opposite (T.31-1931), but cochineal would not take on cotton and so the expensive purpura patula has been used.
Only eight different types of thread were used in the panel on the right (T.34-1931), the following ones are not found: red wool, light blue floss silk and black floss silk. []