Exotic Rugs, Textiles Exhibited At New York Museum

Woven Splendor celebrates the Club's 75th anniversary with more than 100 extraordinary items chosen from the collections of members past and present as well as those currently in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Textile Museum of Washington, D.C. and other public institutions. Textiles in the exhibition originate from China and Southeast Asia, through India, Tibet, Central Asia, and the Islamic Near East, to Africa and Moorish Spain and include costumes, tapestries, carpets and decorative pieces crafted between the 15th and 20th centuries.

While past exhibitions of woven goods have focused on themes such as design, regional characteristics and periods of production, Woven Splendor takes a groundbreaking approach by highlighting the diverse functions of carpets and textiles as clothing, decoration, furnishings or as ceremonial artifacts and religious objects. The study of the function and complex iconography of these colorful woven articles offers a revealing window into the lives, beliefs and events that have shaped the cultures of the peoples within these regions.

"We are pleased to host the seventy-fifth anniversary exhibition of the Hajji Baba Club, a quintessential New York organization as well as a major influence on collecting and scholarship in rugs and textiles," notes Dr. Linda S. Ferber, Executive Vice President and Museum Director. "The exhibition also complements the Historical Society's own Museum and Library collections, which richly document New Yorkers' fascination with Eastern art and culture, particularly in the years leading up to the founding of the Club in 1932."

Woven Splendor is curated by Dr. Jon Thompson, noted author and Director of the Beattie Carpet Archive, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford. Dr. Thompson is an authority on carpets and textiles of the Islamic world and, with Thomas J. Farnham, has produced a stunning companion catalog to the exhibition entitled Timbuktu to Tibet; Exotic Rugs and Textiles from New York Collectors (Hali Publications Limited, London). The catalog will be available for purchase at the New-York Historical Society Museum Store.

"It has always seemed to me that it is possible to get a little closer to the objects we enjoy if we remember that every one of them was made by someone for some purpose," says Dr. Thompson. "So this is the story I have chosen: the people, the way they lived and worked, and the function of the things they made."

Objects featured in the exhibition include:

Bridal Veil (ca. 18th century) This embroidery comes from a remote region in high Tajikistan. It was originally used as a bridal veil. It was the custom, as in many Near Eastern societies, for the bride to remain concealed during the celebrations. After the wedding, the veil was put away in an heirloom chest, which probably accounts for this example's excellent state of preservation.

Saddle Cover (19th century) This saddle cover for a horse was a luxury item, with high quality silk embroidery on a felted red wool ground and leather. Although the type of needlework used here is reminiscent both of Uzbek embroidery and Iranian decorative motifs, it is more likely that this piece was produced in Azerbaijan.

Silk Robe (19th century) Central Asia's ikat silks are some of the most striking textiles ever made. The yarn used to weave the cloth produced for this elegant robe is dyed in stages in a painstaking process that produces a cloth of astonishing color. European travelers marveled at the vibrant colors and intricate patterns on display as part of everyday garb in what is modern day Uzbekistan.

COMPANION EXHIBITION, PANEL DISCUSSIONS

To provide historical context for Woven Splendor, the New-York Historical Society has organized the companion exhibit, Allure of the East: Orientalism in New York, 1850-1930, which chronicles the city's infatuation with the Near East in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The display explores the myriad influences the Orient-as the Middle East, North Africa and Moorish Spain were then called-wielded in an urban population fascinated with images of sultanates, minarets, bazaars, and oases. The installation includes paintings of Orientalist subjects that hung in New York salons, portraits of elite New Yorkers clad in Middle Eastern costume, photographs of opulent interiors decorated to capture the ambience of an Ottoman smoking lodge or the Alhambra itself, in addition to objets d'art that reflect the powerful impact of this collective fantasy on design and the popular imagination. -- www.nyhistory.org