Small Blanket

This electrifying design features an early example of pictorial imagery in Diné weaving: a pair of lightning bolts issue from each corner of the central diamond. In the late 1870s and 1880s, Diné weavers specialized in buzzing compositions such as this, often called eye dazzlers. While artists had long created textiles for trade, they began weaving works for new markets following the annexation of the Southwest by the United States, in 1848. This blanket, likely woven around 1875 on the recently formed Navajo Reservation, was acquired by an early federal agent to the Navajo nation.