Heaven in a Carpet

Roland Gilles

• 01 oktober 2004
• 9789053495346

Samenvatting:

The exhibition Heaven in a Carpet offers to the public a selection of around 60 knotted carpets, which were made between the 15th to the 17th centuries in workshops in the Muslim Orient - Mamluk Egypt, Ottoman Turkey and Safavid Persia. These carpets, certain of which are of spectacular dimensions, illustrate the three decorative fashions that appeared during this period. From the geometrical style of the 15th century, close to architectural decoration, there will follow at the beginning of the following century, constructions with a central medallion symbolically reproducing a Celestial throne, and then, complex arrangements with vegetable themes and fantastic flowers. Beside these works, which come directly from court artists, there are village and tribal carpets with related designs. Later, but no less beautiful, these carpets were woven in domestic workshops, in either the Caucasus, North Africa or Central Asia and demonstrate the creative work of memory. The exhibition, which is organized in partnership with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon has called upon around ten museum loans, in France as well as in foreign countries, and gathers pieces which have rarely been seen by the public.