Hand Hooked Textile Appraisal

Caribbean Style Hand-Hooked Textile Wall Hanging

This is a hand-hooked fiber art wall hanging or miniature rug featuring an architectural tropical landscape. The piece depicts a cluster of colorful, stylized buildings nestled between two palm trees. The construction utilizes a traditional hooking technique, where loops of dyed wool or synthetic yarn are pulled through a coarse burlap or jute backing to create a dense, textured pile. The color palette is vibrant and folk-inspired, utilizing bold shades of red, mustard yellow, burnt orange, and forest green, accented by a sand-colored background and a thick black-hooked border. Physically, the item appears to be roughly rectangular with slight undulating irregularity along the top edge, suggesting a hand-made or artisanal origin rather than factory production. The palm trees are rendered with thick brown trunks and dark green fronds, while the houses feature contrasting doors and rooflines. The visible condition is fair to good; there is some noticeable sagging or 'waviness' to the backing fabric, which is common in older hooked pieces that haven't been stretched on a frame. The fibers show a light level of surface fuzzing consistent with age, but no major areas of thread loss or staining are immediately apparent. There are no visible maker's marks or signatures on the front side. This piece likely dates to the late 20th century, approximately 1970s-1990s, and reflects a naive or folk-art aesthetic frequently found in Caribbean or coastal decorative artisan markets.