Navajo Germantown Bird Pictorial Wool Textile, Southwest

United States, Southwest, Navajo

1890

Germantown wool textile

Height 43 1/4" × Width 27" (109.9 × 68.6 cm)

Provenance: Joan Wegner, Baltimore, Maryland; Caroline Wischmann and David Rasner, Lancaster, Pennsylvania

Publication: Rainbow Yarn, "Navajo Weaving's, Germantown Yarns & the Pennsylvania Connection", Brant Mackley, Lancaster Quilt and Textile Museum, 2009

Exhibition: Lancaster Quilt and Textile Museum, March 27 – December 31, 2009

This Navajo Germantown bird pictorial textile dates to 1890 and features bird figures integrated within a geometric stepped and diamond field in deep red, blue, and ivory. Germantown yarns commercially spun, aniline-dyed wool produced in Germantown, Pennsylvania, were widely traded to Navajo weavers beginning in the 1860s and became central to a distinctive category of late nineteenth-century Navajo weaving known for its vivid color palette and fine thread count. The bird pictorial tradition within Germantown weaving represents a particularly inventive subset, incorporating naturalistic motifs within formal geometric structures.

This textile has documented exhibition and publication history, having been included in the Lancaster Quilt and Textile Museum's 2009 exhibition and accompanying publication on the Pennsylvania Germantown yarn trade and its influence on Navajo weaving. The provenance traces through two named collections in Baltimore and Lancaster. The textile is in collector condition with full documentation.

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