Rug
ClassificationsTextiles-floor coverings-rugs and mats
Culture
Navajo
Datec. 1910
Made AtArizona, United States, North America
MediumDyed wool
Dimensions103 1/2 × 65 1/4 × 1/4 in. (262.9 × 165.7 × 0.6 cm)
Credit LineGift of Dennis J. Aigner
Object number2019.5.1
DescriptionThe bold borders; size; gray, white, black and red color scheme; inclusions of the Bishop Cross and whirling logs motifs and general visual appearance make it likely that this Navajo Rug comes from the Ganado area. Though he was not the first trader in the region, Juan Lorenzo Hubbell was the first to heavily influence the designs of the weavers he bought from in the areas surrounding his Ganado trading post. Where later traders like J.B. Moore took from Oriental designs, Hubbell drew on older Navajo ones. Small watercolor paintings of these rugs made from examples already in East Coast Collections, were brought to weavers to replicate. As for the swastika motif, despite its modern connotations it has been an auspicious symbol for at least thousands of years. For the Navajo, it was a figurative representation of the ‘whirling logs,’ a commonly depicted sand painting from the Night Chant and together with an axis with two legs—where the swastika instead has four—forms a visual pun of the Navajo mantra, “successfully attaining a ripe old age by daily spiritual renewal according to the universal beauty of the cosmos.”On View
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