Hubbell Revival-Style Rug with Moki (Moqui) Stripes (c. 1890–1910): Art, History and Details

Hubbell Revival-Style Rug with Moki (Moqui) Stripes (c. 1890–1910) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Navajo blankets are splendid microcosms of the Southwest’s cultural richness. This example has two old Navajo designs: the terraced diamond and the striped moki pattern. Moki’s origin is unclear. It may have come from Pueblo peoples, from whom the Navajo learned weaving after migrating to the Southwest from Canada. Or it could have come from the Spaniards, who arrived in the Southwest in 1540, not long after the Navajo. Though the patterns are old, the blanket was created around 1900 when Navajo weavers began to innovate for the Anglo market, and wearing-blankets, which were worn around the shoulders, became rugs sold to outsiders. In Navajo legend, weaving is connected to the mythic Spider-Woman, who on her loom wove the universe from cosmic materials. Weaving, then, is an activity charged with meaning. The Navajo place emphasis not so much on the final product but on the process, which they regard as a means of creating beauty and projecting it onto the world.

Object facts

• Title: Hubbell Revival-Style Rug with Moki (Moqui) Stripes
• Date: c. 1890–1910
• Culture: America, Native North American, Southwest, Navajo (Dine), female artist
• Type: Textile
• Technique: Wool (Germantown): tapestry weave
• Dimensions: Overall: 194.8 x 138.4 cm (76 11/16 x 54 1/2 in.)
• Collection: T - Native North American
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1917.62

Collection credit

Gift of Mrs. L. E. Holden

Further reading listed by the museum

• "Accessions." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 4, no. 4 (1917): 64-67.
• Sims, Lowery Stokes. The persistence of geometry: form, content, and culture in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2006.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.