View from the Fringe Newsletter of the New England Rug Society Vol. 28 No. 3 March 2021 www.ne-rugsociety.org March Meeting (Online): Stefano Ionescu, “Tracing the Ottoman Rugs in Transylvania” Meeting Details Date and Time: 11 AM (EST), on Saturday, March 13 Venue: Your desktop, laptop, or tablet! Directions: Jim Sampson 1 will email invitation links to members; to receive the Stefano Ionescu, examples, including Ushaks, Holbeins, Lottos, Selendis, and Zoom login, you must register and a view of Lotto a wealth of “Transylvanian” rugs. The presentation will draw before the meeting by clicking and small-pattern on his new ideas and latest findings about these carpets— on the link in Jim’s email. Holbein rugs including the nature of their “intentional imperfections.” He Non-members should email in Saint Margaret’s will conclude by showing some unpublished examples of the
[email protected] Church, Mediaş, Bistritza collection held in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum to get an invitation link. Transylvania in Nuremberg, and will briefly report on a project of weaving high-quality Anatolian copies of these rugs, to be displayed Transylvania is the repository of the richest and best- in the Bistritza Parish. preserved group of small-format Anatolian rugs outside the Born in 1951 in Transylvania, Stefano has lived in Rome Islamic world—almost four hundred examples (including since 1975. An independent scholar, he is the major expert on the fragments) attributable to the golden age of Ottoman corpus of Anatolian rugs surviving in his homeland. His first rug weaving. On March 13, Stefano Ionescu will tell NERS book, Antique Ottoman Rugs in Transylvania (2005), was attendees and guests how these rugs arrived in Transylvania, awarded the Romanian Academy Prize in Art History.