NOTES
Diamonds radiate a series of cool, serrated lines. Across the red ground, a secondary network emerges and subtly echoes the bold contours of the overall design. These nuanced shifts between a brighter tone and a darker, cool red indicate the artist used yarns from at least two dye batches. Plied, industrially manufactured fibers yield crimson while warmer scarlet hues result from wool the artist dyed and spun herself.
In the last decades of the 19th century, Diné weavers used new materials to create complex, vibrant textiles such as this work. Aniline-dyed yarns initially arrived when the federal government supplied these materials to the Navajo Nation as part of annuity payments following the Treaty of Bosque Redondo in 1868. Later, weavers obtained these yarns as well as synthetic, powdered dyestuffs from trading posts on the Navajo reservation.
