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Molas: The Jane Gruver Collection, Jane Gruver

Molas Collection

For over 40 years, Jane Gruver, "the Mola Lady," and her husband Dr. Daniel Gruver lived and worked among the Kuna of the San Blas Islands of Panama. Jane acquired a deep appreciation and understanding of Kuna mola making and collected the molas presented here to document this tradition. Beginning in 1994, she began to donate molas to the Hudson Museum as a way of recording this artform and the lifeways of the Kuna for the future.

Molas are reverse appliqued fabric panels made to adorn women's blouses and were probably derived from body painting of the pre-Conquest era. The …