Ingmars Lindbergs
Director
Lot 163
A fine and rare Diné (Navajo) Classic Period first phase chief's wearing blanket
18 June 2025, 12:00 PDT
Los AngelesSold for US$127,500 inc. premium
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A fine and rare Diné (Navajo) Classic Period first phase chief's wearing blanket
Finely woven with a wide central natural single-ply brown field, flanked by thinner bands of three-ply Saxony cochineal-dyed red, single-ply natural cream and indigo bands overlaid on a brown and cream banded ground, with conforming red, indigo, and natural three-ply Saxony pale green-yellow striped accents flanking the center and at each end, cleaned and with small areas restored.
size approximately 4ft 9in x 5ft 5 1/2in (57 x 65.5in)
size approximately 4ft 9in x 5ft 5 1/2in (57 x 65.5in)
Footnotes
Dye testing by Dr. David Wenger confirms the stated red dyes; a copy of the dye tests to accompany the lot.
Provenance
From a New England family collection, the blanket was stored for the past sixty years in the chest of a generational home, having passed by descent from Stephen N. Bond (1861-1940) and Anna E. Bond (1892-1979). It is unknown whether the couple collected these weavings in the first decades of the 20th century during their frequent travels across the country and abroad, or if the textiles had come into the family prior to their marriage.
The present lot is a hitherto unknown example of a rare variant of nineteenth century Diné weaving, a chiefs' first phase wearing blanket not woven in the Ute style. While the more recognizable Ute-style first phase weavings are identifiable by their distinctive banded pattern of indigo blue, natural brown and cream wool, a far smaller number of first phase blankets feature the addition of red stripes of varying proportions to the composition. With the warps of the present lot in alternating bands of white and brown wool at a count of 12 per inch, and the weft ranging between 55 to 65 wefts per square inch, this is an exceptionally fine example of a master weaver's artistry. In terms of graphic composition and balance, the present lot shares strong aesthetic similarities with an earlier bayeta classic first phase blanket in the National Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian Institution (NMAI #11.8280). Collected in 1851 by Samuel W. Woodhouse (1821-1904), a surgeon and naturalist who accompanied the Topographical Engineer Corps during the Sitgreaves Expedition to explore the Zuni and Colorado Rivers, that weaving shares the central wide natural brown band of the present lot, a feature not seen in other known examples of the type. That weaving can be viewed online at https://americanindian.si.edu/collections-search/object/NMAI_127392. The thinness of the indigo stripes and addition of narrow bands of pale green-yellow in the present lot mark a subtle compositional difference between the two weavings; a single horizontal line of red dyed with a lac/cochineal blend (in a ratio of 60:40) presents an additional level of artistic complexity.
