Hajji Baba scores again

Great presentation on Zoom this morning to an audience of scholars from all over the world, and people like me, who are interested in textiles.

Famous Florence dealer and collector, general authority on carpet trading in the 19th century

First he gave us an update on the lockdown in Florence, the pace of vaccination and his own, one dose down, one to go, status. He reminded us that the Florence museums and sites he discussed are closed as of now. So this was a chance at an otherwise impossible viewing.

Then he got into his subject, a work in progress, ongoing research into the trading and provenance of mainly oriental rugs, in the nineteenth century, with reference to the Bardini Museum and its founder, Stefano Bardini, a bit of a character by all accounts

Here's the neighborhood and 

Here are the desirable premises

A lot of rhe lecture was interesting more to serious scholars, but it had its moments.

Such as the explanation of the blue walls in the Gardner Museum in Boston. 

Isabella G had seen the Bardini Museum with its blue walls, then a startling new idea as a background for art, and persisted until she got a description of the mixture from Bardini, and a paint sample to use for her own collection.

I noticed how many of these pieces of Islamic art are lodged, in true colonial style, in western museums.  As here

But in recent years, the Doha  Museum of Islamic art has recaptured some. A good use of oil money, I'd say. It's their cultural capital,  anyway, they should have a say. 

And massive rugs were divided, separated and sometimes bits were clung to by various museums, presenting a kind of jigsaw effect to researchers and curators trying to reassemble them. 

Museums don't like giving up treasures as we all know, even if they were originally looted, don't get me started, you'll be listening to me shouting about the Elgin Marbles, even the name's a travesty, no, no, another time.

But such beauty of the spinner and weaver's art. A couple of the rugs are listed as S spun, interesting technical point. The convention now is to spin Z for singles, then ply S to create a two ply yarn . I need to find out why the single was spun S. 

Often researchers who are not spinners know the direction, and note it, but don't follow up on why. At least the presenters I've asked sort of coughed and shuffled their feet, maybe translating to don't ask me, I only work here.

Anyway a terrific experience in the company of scholars, for your humble blogger. They put us all on the screen, and people could ask questions directly as well as in the written q and a.  I listened to my betters!