Red Mesa Outline Navajo Rug with Vallero Stars [SOLD]

This textile originated in the Red Mesa area of the Navajo Reservation.  It is described as a “Red Mesa Outline” rug because of the thin lines of yarn that outline the division between the black and red in the zigzag lines.  It is also classed as a “pictorial rug” because of the arrows, feathers, and Vallero Stars.  It dates to the 1920s, the classic period of twentieth-century textiles.  It is thought that the outlining in these textiles is a direct outgrowth from the earlier period of “eyedazzler” rugs.

Red Mesa Trading Post is fifteen miles west of Teec Nos Pos in the Four Corners area (New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Utah).  Weavers there have been some of the best on the Navajo reservation.  The designs used were influenced by surrounding weaving areas—Vallero Star from Crystal Trading Post, use of multiple colors from Teec Nos Pos, and outlining from earlier eyedazzler textiles.  It was the artistic talent of the weavers of Red Mesa to combine these borrowed design ideas into the beautiful result of a Red Mesa Outline Rug, the distinctive style associated with the region.

Condition: very good condition and recently professionally washed

Provenance: this Red Mesa Outline Navajo Rug with Vallero Stars is from the collection of a gentleman from Santa Fe

Recommended Reading: The Navajo Weaving Tradition 1650 to the Present by Alice Kaufman and Christopher Selser

Relative Links: Navajo Textiles, Navajo Nation