About Us

Gallery

Business Policies

Contact

Home

A very rare, very beautiful, very finely woven

and very unique Navajo Late Classic Period twill-woven Bayeta Woman’s Manta, c. 1870

ex: Tyrone D. Campbell Collection, Scottsdale, AZ

This wonderful historic late classic Navajo weaving is a rare and fascinating piece in every possible respect from

its early time period to its exotic and unique materials, fine methods of manufacture, unique stylistic virtues and

its outstanding impeccable collection provenance.

Let’s start from the start, with the wool which forms the blanket itself. The blanket is made of the following types of wool; the red is fine rare, red raveled Bayeta or Baize dyed with natural cochineal dye, a commercial trade cloth likely imported into the Southwest from Mexico which had to be purchased at some considerable cost by the Navajo weaver who then painstakingly unraveled the cloth and re-spun it into many multiple strands of yarn for use in the weaving.

It was an expensive and time-consuming process but it yielded yarn with a beautiful color fast rich red color and fine texture. The browns and blues in the blanket are fine lanolin rich native wools from the Navajo’s own Churro Sheep. After the sheep was sheared, the finely textured wool would be carded to remove impurities then spun into strands for weaving. The brown yarns were not dyed, but were sorted separately in terms of color, into darker and lighter lots while what would become the Blue yarns started as natural wool from a grey or white or light brown sheep which was then dyed with deep blue natural Indigo dye to make the blue yarns in the blanket.

Now that the various yarns have been accounted for, then there’s the composition, technique and method of the weaving itself. This weaving is entirely twill-woven, a special and somewhat complex method of weaving originally learned by the Navajo from the Pueblo Indians around the latter part of the 18th century. Twill weaving is more durable in some ways than the usual Navajo flat tapestry style of weaving and it is also more decorative in its style due to the unique patterning and directionality in the weave. There are two distinct types of twill weaving present in this blanket, the indigo blue dyed outer stripes are both woven in a diamond twill pattern as seen here while the brown center area and the Bayeta red stripes are woven in several different diagonal twill patterns as also seen here.

Horizontal Brown Stripes on Man's Chief’s Blankets

At left, a Navajo “Ute-Style” First-Phase Man’s Chief’s Blanket, c. 1800-1850 from the collection of the Arizona State Museum, Tucson.

At right, a Navajo Second-Phase Man’s Chief Blanket, c. 1840  from the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City . Notice how the pattern and spacing of the wide horizontal brown stripes in both of these Chief blankets distinctly resembles the pattern and spacing of the four darker brown horizontal stripes inside the lighter brown center of this Woman’s manta.

Left photo source and © Arizona State Museum, Tucson. Right photo source and © Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Tyrone D. Campbell, Navajo Weaving Expert, Author and Curator

The late Tyrone D. Campbell (1938-2024) , of New Mexico and Arizona, shown here with another of his Navajo Late Classic Period woman's mantas,  was one of the country’s and the world’s foremost experts on historic Navajo and Pueblo weavings. He was an enthusiastic longtime collector of and dealer in them, a respected author of several significant books about them as well as an occasional museum curator who organized exhibitions of them.

Tyrone had a special enthusiasm for Classic-Period Navajo woman’s mantas such as this piece which he and his life partner, Lillian Black owned and displayed proudly in their Scottsdale home for many years. We were longtime professional colleagues of Tyrone’s and Lillian’s and we always enjoyed the process of working with them. They had exceptional taste and unique experience and we were and are very pleased to have sold them over the years what they believed to be some of the finest pieces in their renowned collection.

Photo source and © ATADA

Note also importantly that this weaving is woven wider than long. Mantas, along with men’s and women’s shoulder blankets, the so-called Chief’s blankets, are the only types of Navajo weavings that are woven in this manner, all others such as Serapes, Ponchos, Child’s blankets, Double and Single Saddle blankets and in the later transitional and modern periods, rugs, are all woven longer than wide. The blanket has the customary Classic-Period Manta layout conisting of a wide broiwn center section flanked on both top and bottom by large red raveled Bayeta stripes which, in turn, are bordered by Indigo blue stripes of handspun wool. The red Bayeta stripes have an extremely beautiful and distinctively Navajo pattern of horizontal interconnected terraced diamond designs done in Indigo blue dyed yarn running completely across their centers.

The manta is very finely woven with an excellent, soft “handle” or feel in the hand. The weaving measures 54” inches in width and 45” in height. The blanket is in very fine original vintage condition overall. There are a few small spots of what looks like old restoration in the brown center area and one or two very tiny holes present and the tassels at the four corners are no longer with us and there are two dark stains on the reverse or "B" side, but for a 150 plus year old piece, an actually ethnographically used wearing blanket, the condition all around is quite good to excellent.

This blanket has one additional and significant characteristic which we find to be fairly remarkable. Upon a close examination, it can be seen that there are four definite darker brown wide horizontal stripes all the way across the brown center area. These four stripes are equal in width and are equally spaced out and are all woven in a slightly different twill weave pattern with darker brown wools than the rest of the brown center area. The overall visual effect here is essentially that of a Navajo Man’s Chief blanket’s pattern of several horizontal parallel dark brown stripes imposed upon the lighter brown center of a woman’s manta. This is clearly not accidental in any way, it is deliberately and clearly and intentionally done by using different brown wool colors and twill weaves.

In our 40-plus years experience buying and selling and collecting Classic Navajo blankets we have never seen this occurrence and it is unique in our experience and just adds to the beauty and desirability of this blanket in our view.

We wish that we would have had the opportunity to discuss this directly with the blanket’s former owner, the great Navajo weaving authority, Tyrone D. Campbell (1938-2024), but alas that is no longer possible. We are fairly certain that in addition to the overall general beauty of this blanket, the particular uniqueness of the man’s Chiefs Blanket stripes being woven within a woman’s Manta would have bee an important reason why he acquired this blanket for his own collection and kept it until the end of his life. The blanket also has an archival beige-colored Velcro strip sewn in along the top edge of the back side which was applied by Tyrone Campbell for display purposes which is the standard and appropriate conservation method of safe professional museum display of such a textile.

This unique Manta is a rare treasure indeed, from the important private personal collection

of one of the greatest, most knowledgeable and successful collectors of such rare treasures ever.

Price available upon request

Inquire