Palazzo Madama in Turin offers the possibility to admire a new installation in Sala Tessuti which displays 95 of the over 450 artefacts which make up the biggest museum collection of lacework and embroidery. This installation will be on view until December 31, 2010.

The selection retraces the history of lace and provides a deeper understanding of its techniques, fashion, use and symbolic value in fans, aprons, bonnets, handkerchiefs, collars, Renaissance point coupé, Venetian gros point, fine18th century Flemish edges and barbes and 19th century machine made lace.

This new installation involves the whole museum of Palazzo Madama. Visitors come across recommendations for works related to the subject of lace and gain deeper knowledge of the history of costumes. In the Atelier installed in Torre Romana next to Sala Tessuti, materials and instructions are at disposal making it possible to create a ruffle or a collar, just like those seen in the 18th century portraits.

Particular attention has been given to the dialogue with contemporary art: 3 fiber artists of international fame (Wanda Casaril, Gina Morandini and Thessy Schoenholzer Nichols) have reinterpreted the precious weaving that created the history of textile and fashion, creating a series of works exhibited next to the ancient examples.

Finally in Sala Relax, the young students of Fashion and Textile Design at IED display sartorial creations in which they portray the concept of weaving and of the knot, of fullness and emptiness.

The Byzantine & Christian Museum in Athens reopened on May 26, 2010, after being closed for 12 years.The works on display span a period of time ranging from the 3rd century AD to the 20th century and includes paintings on canvas and on panels, mosaics, ceramics, sculptures, manuscripts and more than 1000 textile artefacts, to which a section of the museum has been dedicated.

The textiles come from Greece, the Balkans and Asia Minor. The earliest items of the collection were gathered by the Christian Archaeological Society and several endowments and textiles brought to Greece by refugees who escaped from Asia Minor in 1922 were later added to them.The collection of Byzantine textiles consists for the most part of religious and liturgical hangings mostly created with textiles from Europe and Asia and of embroideries in gold and precious metals dating back to the 14th and 15th centuries. The art of embroidery enjoyed great popularity in the Byzantine empire and even after the Turks took over in 1453 and Constantinople remained an important center for embroidery over the years. In the following centuries, embroiderers from Greece continued to reproduce the patterns of the 15th century and the artisans, perfectly aware of their artistic abilities, often signed their works. Every liturgical garment has a specific name and is connected to orthodox liturgy, such as epitaphioi (garments worn during the ceremony of Holy Friday) or antimensia (linen textiles consecrated with holy oil which allowed for the celebration of Mass anywhere, even during battles).

The exhibition “Giuseppe negli arazzi di Pontormo e Bronzino. Viaggio tra i tesori del Quirinale” was inaugurated some days ago and presents the unique opportunity to admire part of the tapestry collection of the Roman palace in which the President of the Italian Republic resides.

The objects on display are ten of the twenty tapestries commissioned by Cosimo I de’Medici in 1545 in order to completely cover the Sala dei Duecento in Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, where the other half of the series can currently be found. The patterns in these tapestries, impressive and magnificent, were created by great artists of the 16th century. They were commissioned to Pontormo and completed by Bronzino, a favorite of the Medici family (the famous portraits of Cosimo I de’ Medici and Eleonora di Toledo preserved at the Uffizi in Florence are his creations). The Quirinal tapestries, through grand and refined Manneristic images, narrate the history of Joseph, an account particularly loved by the Medici who saw events related to their family reflected in this story. The tapestry weavers were Flemish: Nicolas Karcher, (plucked from the Mantuan court of Gonzaga) and Jan Rost (who signed the works with the image of spit-roasted chicken, playing on the assonance of “rost-roast”). The ten pieces on display arrived to us in very poor condition because of prolonged exposure to light in the last decade. Their restoration is not complete yet; eight tapestries have undergone the process of restoration, the ninth is in the process of being restored (the work in progress can be seen at the exhibition) and the tenth is still in its pre-restoration condition.

The exhibition at the Quirinal will close on June 30, a few days after the closing of the exhibition on the tapestries of Gonzaga in Mantua, another important event which showcases these textile works, precious and admired since their moment of creation.

The exhibition “Crivelli e Brera” continues at Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan until March 28, 2010. It provides the unique opportunity to admire all the works of the great Venetian painter (living in the second half of the 15^th century) which arrived in Brera from the Marches in 1811 after the Napoleonic raids, some of which left Italy definitively in the following decade. The works of Crivelli are accompanied by a rich repertoire of objects belonging to the so-called “minor guild”, contemporary to Crivelli and represented by the painter himself in the works on display. These objects include relics, jewellery, prints and most of all Oriental carpets and textiles. The rich textile section is curated by MATAM (Museum of Antique Textile Art, Milan) which has assembled two of the four Anatolian Crivelli carpets still existing (from the collections of the Museum of Applied Arts of Budapest and from the Orient Stars collection), a large pattern Holbein carpet which is unique for its size and state of preservation (belonging to the collection of the future MATAM Museum), a fragment of a two-tone damask coming from the Textile Museum of Prato, a velvet “paliotto” from the Museum Diocesano di Ancona and a velvet piece ‘a cammino’. All the textile works can be dated back to the 15^th century and are displayed precisely next to the paintings in which they are portrayed, thus underlining their significance as a source of inspiration for Carlo Crivelli and their influence on him. It should be highlighted that the carpets were already rare and precious artifacts at the time, considered to be as valuable as other objects of art.

An additional element of this project was the publication of the book “Crivelli e l’arte tessile. I tappeti e i tessuti di Carlo Crivelli” by MATAM and Mondadori Electa. This book provides a deeper understanding of the carpets and textiles depicted in the works of the Venetian painter in his Marches period. The studies on the Anatolian carpet and their portrayals in Italian painting from Veneto and the Marches are accompanied by archival and documentary research performed on the Marches region, aimed at gaining greater undestanding of the economic history related to carpet trade between Italy and the Near East. The book was presented on February 4 as part of a conference that concluded with a special celebration at Pinacoteca di Brera which remained open for extended hours specially for this occasion.

The exhibition “The Tsars and the East:Gifts from Turkey and Iran in the Moscow Kremlin” at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington closes on September 13. The event, organized by the Smithsonian Institution in collaboration with the Moscow Kremlin, presents more than 60 objects given to Russian Tsars between the 16th and 18th century by the Ottomans and Safavids as diplomatic gifts.

Silks, jewellery, arms and armor and other extraordinary artifacts had arrived in Russia and become part of the royal treasury and comprised the furnishings of orthodox churches.

This exhibition intended to demonstrate how these precious artifacts had been viewed as symbols of secular and religious power in the Russia of Tsars and visibly and definitively influenced future Russian artistic creations dedicated to the court and to the church.

The chance to admire the tapestry “Il Tempo che scaccia i piaceri della vita”, owned by the Accademia dei Concordi di Rovigo and exhibited at the Prato Textile Museum, is soon coming to an end (until 28 June 2009).

The tapestry was restored to its original splendor as a result of intervention carried out by Consorzio Tela di Penelope at the internal laboratories of the Museum.

The tapestry dates back to the first half of the seventeenth century and belonged to a series of four big tapestries, woven on cardboard attributed to Antoon Sallaert ( pre 1590-1650), also famed as a painter who worked closely with Rubens.

The theme of the artwork is pedantic and alludes to “vanitas” and the transitory nature of life: Time, represented by the characteristic old winged figure with the scythe, is seen accompanied by the two cardinal virtues of Temperance and Prudence next to him while the figures of Dance, Love, Happiness and Pleasure in the background are depicted as turning away from him.

At the “Collections of Ancient and Modern Art and Antiques – 2009 edition” exhibition running from March 31 to April 5 at La Permanente in Milan, the MATAM Foundation is previewing two precious ancient carpets from its collection, destined for the Museum of Antique Textile Arts of Milan.

The two artefacts, unique and very well-conserved, are a preview of what will be displayed in the halls of the museum set to open in 2011.

The first is an “Isfahan”, a Persian carpet dating back to mid-sixteenth century, in the style of the court of the initial Safavid period with figurative elements of struggling animals and mythological animals. The second is a “Cairo”, a sizeable Egyptian carpet in the Ottoman style, dating back to 1550-1575, with a medallion in the center and somewhat spherical lotus palm decorations in the body and in the borders.    

As Moshe Tabibnia reminds us (Rachele Ferrario, Corriere della Sera, Saturday, March 28, 2009), Matam will not only house carpets from ancient eras, datable until the end of the eighteenth century, but also “antique” artefacts from the nineteenth century: “ In general, the nineteenth century is never taken into consideration. There is a preference for exhibiting artefacts from the more classic periods of textile art. However, the nineteenth century is interesting: Americans and Europeans travel to laboratories in Iran and “impose” the demands of the market and of style, change dimensions and recapture designs of past eras”.

On March 23, 2009, the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine hoisted up two of the 12 Barberini tapestries in St. John’s collection. The pieces selected are “The Crucifixion” and “Agony in the Garden,” and are to remain on display in the arches of the north and south transept during the Easter season. These two16-foot-high works which are moving reminders of the suffering and crucifixion preceding rebirth were created in the mid 1600s by Giovanni Francesco Romanelli, but are named after Cardinal Barberini, who commissioned them for his uncle, Pope Urban VIII. Thanks to intervention by the Textile Conservation Laboratory  at St. John the Divine,  the red and blue of the “The Crucifixion” really stand out and details such as the bees in the border which symbolize the Barberini family catch the eye. This is the first time the tapestries are being exhibited since the fire in 2001 which caused major damage to the church. The dean of the Cathedral, the Very Rev. Dr. James A. Kowalski, points out that they were fortunate to be able to display these works during the liturgical season of Lent, as they were originally intended to be shown.

As in every spring, “Asian Art Week” is about to start in New York (March 17-20 2008). On this occasion, the biggest international auction houses such as Sotheby’s, Christie’s, Bonhams and Doyle have organized numerous events based on the many expressions of Asian art including paintings, ceramic, sculpture and textile.

At the same time, some of the most important galleries in the city have planned to exhibit objects coming from countries facing the Pacific. China is the main player at Danon Gallery where an exhibition of carpets and dragons dating back to the seventeenth century will be held. This exhibition will then move to Italy to the National Museum of Oriental Art in Rome.  

Finally, the biggest and oldest fair on Far Eastern art in New York, “New York Arts of Pacific Asia“, will be held at Merchandise Marts Exhibition Centre from March 14-18. Seventy five of the biggest specialized galleries will be exhibiting at this fair.

Chinese influence has also made itself shown at the Metropolitan, where the exhibition “Arts of the Ming Dynasty: China’s Age of Brilliance” opened on January 23 in an effort to accentuate the Museum’s collection of manuscripts and Chinese paintings, placed side by side with textile (such as the marvellous fifteenth century embroidery shown in the photo), ceramic, glazes and lacquers from  the golden period in Chinese art.

The exhibition “Shah Abbas. The remaking of Iran” will be inaugurated tomorrow at the British Museum in London. The event is part of the series of exhibitions dedicated to great kings of the past: following the Adriano exhibition, it is now the turn of  seventeenth-century Iran, described under the rule of Shah Abbas I.  The exhibition draws attention to the social, religious and artistic influence and inheritance left by Shah Abbas.

The MATAM foundation has granted a loan of three carpets belonging to the collection of the future Museum of Antique Textile Arts in Milan. They include a sizable Persian carpet with a crimson field featuring a plant motif and two prayer rugs decorated with Quranic inscriptions on a red and blue background; all the carpets, unique and particularly precious, date back to the seventeenth century. The visitors of the gallery have already had the opportunity to admire  these  works during the exhibition “Milestones in the history of carpets” held in 2005.