A Classic Moki Serape with Terraced Diamonds, Navajo, circa 1855,
also known as the Ernst Moki Serape. Ex- Margo and John Ernst, New York.

A Classic Moki Serape with Terraced Diamonds, Navajo, circa 1855, also known as the Ernst Moki Serape. Ex- Margo and John Ernst, New York.

The Moki Serape measures 70 inches long by 48 inches wide, as woven.

The Ernst Moki serape is illustrated as Plate 32 in Selser and Kaufman, The Navajo Weaving Tradition, 1985. Selser and Kaufman date the Moki Serape “c. 1865.”

The Ernst Moki Serape is ex- Phyllis and Ellsworth Kettner, of San Diego, California. In 1978, Mark Winter purchased the Moki serape from the Kettners, 1978. In 1978, Lee Cohen and Christopher Selser, of Gallery 10, Scottsdale, purchased the Moki serape from Winter. In 1980, Margot and John Ernst, of New York, purchased the Moki serape from Selser.

Between 1979 and 1996, the Ernsts built an important collection of classic Navajo blankets, with a focus on bayeta serapes. This classic Moki was the only Moki serape in the Ernst’s collection.

Between 1994 and 2012, Margot and John Ernst were co-chairs of the George Gustav Heye Center / National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) at Bowling Green, New York. In 2019, the Ernsts donated six classic Navajo blankets from their collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

In 2016, Michael Moore, of Lake Forest, Illinois, purchased the Moki serape from the Ernsts. In 2018, the Moki serape was purchased from Michael Moore by the current owners.

The solid red yarn—in the central diamonds and corner slashes—is raveled bayeta piece-dyed with cochineal.

The flecked red yarn—in the horizontal bands—is Manchester bayeta piece-dyed with cochineal.

The blue yarns are handspun Churro fleece dyed in the yarn with indigo.

The brown yarns are un-dyed handspun Churro fleece, carded and spun from two different brown fleeces.

Color variegation in the blue and the brown handspun yarns gives the Ernst Moki Serape its unusual degree of atmospheric depth. The absence of white handspun yarns enhances that depth.