Description:
This small square saddle blanket is woven from aniline dyed red, black, white, and gray wool. A central motif consists of a repeating geometric pattern of black, gray, white, and red. Four black and gray lightning rods encompass these images, shown on each corner of the textile. These rods represent a popular Navajo weaving motif, communicating the belief that lightning created the first weaving tools for women to use. (Lightning patterns later morphed into the popular Germantown Eyedazzler pattern.) Aniline dyes, producing vibrant colors that did not easily fade, became popular in the late 1880s, when the detailed "Germantown Eyedazzler" weaving pattern (consisting of fine diamonds and zigzags, rather than geometrics or horizontal bands) also originated. Red tassels, complete with small bars of diagonal color (gray, brown/yellow) are also present, signaling that the saddle blanket was a "fancy" saddle blanket. A light colored fringe also appears to have once existed on the blanket's upper and lower borders. AP2018
Subjects:
Wool Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=SC+2002.23.4 |
