Crystal Trading Post Navajo Rug, circa 1900 [SOLD]

In the final two decades of the 19th century, most weavers strongly resisted the local traders' attempts to induce them to turn out what an Eastern or Midwestern Anglo lady could recognize as a proper rug—a bordered, rectangular, wool textile, its inner space plentifully filled with elaborate motifs suggestive of those found in carpets from the Orient, Persia, Turkey and the Caucasus.

Two of the earliest traders to the Navajo were the most influential in ushering in the Rug Era—Don Lorenzo Hubbell, at Ganado, and J. B. Moore, at Crystal Springs. Design elements from both these gentlemen were similar. Hubbell preferred lots of red; Moore preferred more natural tones.

Black (actually the natural dark brown of some sheep), white, gray, and some red were preferred by Moore at Crystal Trading Post. Moore liked "hooks" and he supplied weavers around his post with examples of Turkish and other carpets popular then in Anglo households.  Earlier rugs from Crystal had simpler borders.  Although J. B. Moore had departed the post by 1911, his patterns lingered on for another 20 to 30 years.

This circa 1900 rug is very typical of rugs from Crystal Trading Post at that time.  We see in this textile, a center field of crosses, plus signs, stars or however one wishes to define them.  The rug is borderless as defined by the same color field extending to all four sides.  The main design elements are a series of red triangles over which are brown triangles over which are white triangles, the whole element suggesting a Navajo Reservation mountain.  At each end of the textile appears a more simplified design of such a mountain.  The two elements within the rug near the ends are similar to what eventually became known as water bugs, seen on later textiles.

Condition:  the rug has just been professionally cleaned and is in good to very good condition.

Provenance: from the collection of Chuck and Jan Rosenak, collectors of and authors of books on Navajo folk art.

Recommended Reading:  Navajo Weaving: Three Centuries of Change (Studies in American Indian Art) by Kate Kent