Oriental Rug Exchange

07/11/2025

01/22/2025

Grand Bazaar of - . Those are pictorial rugs, not paintings.

01/22/2025

In HALI 222, our latest issue centred on textiles along the Silk Roads, curator Luk Yu-ping comments on items from the ‘Silk Roads’ exhibition at the British Museum, and traces the history of sericulture and 500 years of contact and exchange:

‘It is now widely understood that silk was only one of many goods, along with people and ideas, that moved in the networks of contact and exchanges that spread across Afro-Eurasia. The British Museum’s major exhibition on the subject presents this expanded vision of the Silk Roads.’

Yu-ping draws attention to this silk embroidery ‘found in Cave 17, a repository hidden in the early 11th century at a vast rock-cut Buddhist cave temple complex in Dunhuang in northwest China.

‘This work, dated to the 8th century, is embroidered with silk on a silk ground, backed with h**p. The embroidery itself uses the split stitch of varying lengths that at places resembles satin stitch, a technique that became widely used from around the mid-Tang dynasty. As such, it may be a record of this transition. Embroidering the Buddha image was considered among believers to be an act of merit-making. A finished image, like this example, could serve as a votive offering and the focus of worship in a shrine.’

The full article can be accessed with a digital subscription to HALI. HALI 222 is now available to buy via the link in our bio.

Image: 'Miraculous Image of Liangzhou' (detail), China, ca. 700–800. British Museum, Stein Collection. Found in Cave 17, Mogao Caves, Dunhuang

01/22/2025

“Clearly, there were problems with conventional wisdom. The most glaring gap in conventional carpet theory, however, is that specialists simply did not have—and never have had—an explanation for the core problem: What is a Muslim carpet doing in a Christian painting in the first place?'
---Professor Lauren Arnold from the Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western history at the University of San Francisco

01/22/2025

An article in HALI 222 features textiles selected by 17 scholars and museum curators illuminating facets of the Silk Road. Among the objects are Central Asian textiles, a sleeveless tunic, five-colour samite, a silk panel, and more.

Nicoletta Fazio from the Qatar Museums commented on this silk robe from Iran: ‘My heart dropped when my eyes fell on [it], hidden, for years, amid thousands of other objects acquired by Qatar Museums. Although darkened by the passing of time, the coat retains its ancient sheen, and it must have made quite an impression when worn. It is simple in cut; its beauty lies in its material, fine untwisted silk woven in a repeated pattern of large medallions with confronted dragons in double-pearl roundels.’

Discover the other textiles chosen by museum curators through a digital subscription to HALI, which can be accessed via the link in our bio.

Image: Silk Robe, Iran, 7th–8th centuries. Museum of Islamic Art, Doha.

01/22/2025

The New England Rug Society is hosting a virtual lecture, "Gems of Ottoman Classical Rugs - A New Perspective," by Stefano Ionescu on March 1, 2025.

01/22/2025

The Azerbaijan National Carpet Museum in Baku houses a vast collection of approximately 700 flat-woven carpets. This collection spans the 18th to 20th

01/11/2025

The Rug and Textile Appreciation Morning on April 5, 2025 includes a session The Classical Tradition in Anatolian Carpets.