textile-art

‘Anatolian Rugs in Transylvanian Churches, 1500-1750’ Sakip Sabanci Museum, Emirgan, Istanbul 19 April to 19 August 2007 This exhibition focuses on a group of Ottoman rugs that were made in west Anatolia between 250 and 500 years ago and have been preserved in the region of Transylvania, in present day Romania and Hungary. These rugs were made in Uşak, Kula, Izmir, Milas, Bergama and the surrounding villages and represent a small but important aspect of a lost artistic tradition. Very few examples from this period and region have survived in Turkey, with just a small number in Turkish museums. Fortunately, however, they have been greatly admired over the past 500 years by the Protestant Christian communities of Transylvania: at the beginning of the 20th century some 600 of them were kept and hung in more than 80 churches, and almost 400 are known to survive there today. In order to represent the diversity of the art of the rug in western Anatolia between 1500 and 1750, thirty-seven outstanding examples have been carefully selected from churches and museums in Romania and Hungary. To these have been added four contemporaneous Egyptian rugs by courtesy of the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin and the Museum of Applied Art in Budapest.