Saturday April 25th, 2009
Ottoman Rugs In
Transylvanian Churches
Alberto Boralevi
Antique Carpet
Dealer and Carpet Scholar
For most people,
Transylvania, now belonging to Rumania, is known for the legend of Count Vlad
Dracula, but it is a land with a rich history, important monuments and an
untouched countryside. For carpet lovers Transylvania is something more: during
the past centuries most of its churches, mainly the Saxon Evangelical ones, have
been adorned with beautiful rugs arrived through trade with the Ottoman Empire.
The Transylvanian Collection is entirely composed of early Turkish rugs
of classical type, including Holbein and Lotto types. These
rugs are extremely rare outside Transylvania; in these churches, almost 50
examples are still preserved. Alberto Boralevi’s talk will cover the history of
these carpets in their context, and cover all the known patterns to be found in
Transylvania, including the so-called Bird design, Chintamani and Scorpion rugs,
as well as Star Ushaks, Smyrna Patterned and even a fragment of an outstanding
‘Bellini’ or ‘re-entry’ prayer rug.
Alberto
Boralevi is
an architect and antique carpet dealer from Florence. Since 1986 he has run
several galleries specializing in tribal weavings, early classical and rare
carpet fragments, Islamic textiles and embroideries, and Italian peasant rugs
and textiles. Mr. Boralevi also lectures on Oriental Rugs and works as an
appraiser and consultant, and organizes study tours to rug producing countries
and to visiting important Rug Collections worldwide, including to the churches
in Rumania. In 1999, as Chairman of ICOC Academic Committee, Mr. Boralevi
organized the Lectures Program of the 9th
Conference in Milan, and while in Florence he was the curator of an exhibition
of Classical Carpets from the Bardini Collections (Oriental Geometries).
Since 2003 he has been a member of ICOC Executive Committee and Chairman of the
International Academic Committee, and in this role he organized the lecture
program of Istanbul ICOC in 2007 and is now working on the next Conference that
will be held in Stockholm and Saint Petersburg in June 2011. Mr. Boralevi
invites members of TMA/SC to bring examples of antique Ottoman carpets for show
& tell.