It is important to get a Navajo Navajo rug at a dealer that is located near or on the reservation. Rugs from distant areas are often difficult for authenticators to verify. Buy authentic rugs to support local art communities and make an investment in American art. You should not purchase a rug in a departmental store. It is possible that the designer simply used a Navajo image to give it a look of being made by Navajos.
There are two exceptions to the “no fringe” rule. Germantown rugs have a fringe that is added on after the rug is woven. They are rare and there’s a good picture of one of them at left. The fringe on an antique Germantown may be partially worn away, or gone altogether, but this does not hurt the structure of the textile, since the fringe is an add-on. The other exception to the rule is a Gallup throw. These small pieces about usually 18″ by 24″ and are woven in the Gallup, New Mexico area. A typical Gallup throw is woven on a cotton warp, and the weaving is cut off and knotted rather than finished in the traditional way so there is a fringe on one end only. There are thousands of Gallup throws out there that were sold to train passengers along the Sante Fe railway. They make a nice addition to a collection and usually will cost $40 to $50, although I’ve seen them go for $250 on eBay.
Serapes only rarely had a slit in the middle for the head which made them ponchos. Navajo weavers made both the manta and serape styles during the eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries along with shirts, dresses, breechcloths, and sashes. These early weavings made before the 1870s are very rare, bringing tens of thousands of dollars-or more-from collectors and museums. The so-called Chief’s Blanket is a specific style of manta that went through a distinct design evolution.
Navajo rugs stand out among all the rugs with a high price tag. Navajo rugs are expensive. First, they are rich in history. You will also notice that these rugs exhibit excellent craftsmanship. Finally, we can see the type and method of weaving used by the weaver to create these rugs. They are far more durable than any other rug on market.
This is accomplished by alternating weft threads of two contrasting colors and tightly “battening” or packing them together, giving the effect of a thin, undulating line. Starting in the 1940s, Sally and William Lippincott, owners of the trading post at Wide Ruins, Arizona worked with the weavers in their area to develop highly detailed banded patterns rendered in vegetal dyes. Most Wide Ruins rugs are characterized by very fine, tightly-spun yarns and a flat, even weave. They feature the full range of new vegetal colors including soft green, mauve, terra cotta, and pale purple, pink and blue as well as the more common yellow, gold, brown, and tan.
When Germantown wool from Pennsylvania was originally imported, it afforded the weavers a wonderful range of new colors to work with and this design wasperfect for the combining contrasting colors. This rug design looks almost Persian and perhaps least likea Navajo. It is a very busy and bold design with a wide border filled witha variety of motifs, especially a lightning path. It is a complex design andthe rugs are often large. The centers of these rugs are quite elaborate withfeathers, arrows, and claw-like hooks extending from the points of diamonds andtriangles. Zigzags will be everywhere. There are really no color rules, except they should harmonize.This design also contains a lot of diagonal lines.