Exceptional Navajo Sunday Saddle Blanket

"Sunday Saddle Blankets" by Diné of the Navajo Nation weavers captured that name because of their elaborate and fancy designs. Often, a Sunday Saddle Blanket would be placed on top of a more functional one, leaving the lower one to absorb the horse's sweat while protecting the Sunday one.

To quote Lane Coulter, author of Navajo Saddle Blankets: Textiles to Ride in the American Southwest:

"Navajo saddle blankets are among the most underappreciated art forms in the American Southwest, the Cinderella of Navajo textiles. Saddle blankets have played a key role in Navajo life both as utilitarian objects and as a force in the economic sustainability of modern Navajo life. They represent a material link between Navajo weavers and traders. This modest textile has found a context in the cattle industry, inside rural cabins, on the floors of eastern bungalows, on the walls of art museums, and even on horseback. It has served countless cultural and utilitarian demands placed on it over the last century and a half, with no sunset in sight." [Coulter, 2002]

Sunday Saddle Blankets are usually of a single size, not intended to be folded over for use on a horse, but to be displayed fully open as a work of art, whether thrown over a traditional saddle blanket for fancy occasions or for display on a wall as the work of art they are.

Condition: very good condition

Provenance: this Exceptional Navajo Sunday Saddle Blanket is from the collection of a client from California

Reference: Coulter, Lane. Navajo Saddle Blankets: Textiles to Ride in the American West, Museum of New Mexico Press, 2002

TAGS: textiles, Navajo Nation