A Classic Second Phase Chief’s Blanket, Navajo, circa 1850,
also known as the Ernst Second Phase.

A Classic Second Phase Chief’s Blanket, Navajo, circa 1850, also known as the Ernst Second Phase.

The second phase measures 60 inches long by 70 inches wide, as woven.

Chief’s blankets with concentric squares or horizontal rectangles are called “second phases.” This is a classic bayeta style second phase, with thin red stripes between its design elements.

The second phase illustrated as Plate 26 in Selser and Kaufmann, The Navajo Weaving Tradition, 1985. Selser and Kaufman date the second phase “c. 1860.”

The second phase is ex- Captain William Mifflin Smith, of San Diego. Between 1861 and 1865, Smith served with the Fifth California Infantry in the Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas Territories.

The second phase is ex- Gene Summers, of Healdsburg, California; and ex- Tom Buffaloe, of Mancos, Colorado. In 1983, Margot and John Ernst, of New York,  purchased the second phase from Buffaloe. Between 1990 and 2000, the Ernsts were the co-chairs of the George Gustav Heye Center, Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, at Bowling Green, New York.

The Ernst Second Phase is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York, by donation from Margot and John Ernst, in 2019.

The Ernst Second Phase is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, by donation from Margot and John Ernst, in 2019.

In the Ernst Second Phase, all of the red yarns are raveled bayeta piece-dyed with a combination of lac and cochineal. All of the red yarns were raveled from the same bolt of lac- and cochineal-dyed bayeta.

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

The brown yarns and the white yarns are both un-dyed handspun Churro fleece.