A Saltillo Sarape

Old Saltillo Road

  This Saltillo Sarape was woven in the early years of the Maximillian Period, ca: 1862-1875.  Although not the oldest of the various types of Mexican sarapes, the Maximillian Period weavings are the most rare type.  After Maximillian took over Mexico as emperor in 1862, he introduced the new Industrial Revolution yarn to the Mexican weavers....machine spun, machine plied, analine dyed and  thread-like.    He was a nobleman of the French court who loved horse culture and was fascinated by the elevated horse culture of Mexico.  He incorporated the dress style of the Charros of Mexico into his own wardrobe.  By wearing a sarape folded lengthwise over the shoulder, he showed his solidarity with Mexican nationalism, as was the style of the day.  In order to celebrate his French pride as well, he had sarapes woven of this new miracle wool yarn developed in Europe.  It demanded the weavers, who were used to yarn thickness suitable for the various climates of Mexico, to weave extremely fine and densely packed sarapes from this new product.  Once the domestic industry began producing  a local handspun imitation of this European yarn, the Mexican government instituted a large tariff on this miracle yarn in order to halt its import in support of the domestic imitation.  This halt in the import of this yarn occurred in 1875.  Only approximately 125 of the sarapes woven in this short time window have survived.

During this brief time period, the Europeans developed a dying technique for these yarns called "variegated," aka space dyed yarn, and "ombre" (in Spanish".  This technique created multiple colors down the length of each strand of yarn of precise lengths in order to create complexity in the design system of the weaving without changing yarns for each color change. This sarape pre dates  this yarn......color gradients in the design elements are created by using yarns of different colors, therefor, we date this sarape in the earliest years of this brief time slot.....1862-65.

$8,000.00

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