A major exhibition, ‘Sérénissime Trame: Carpets from the Zaleski Collection and Renaissance Paintings’, opens on Thursday 23 March 2017 at the Galleria Giorgio Franchetti alla Ca’ d’Oro in Venice. Until 23 July 2017.
The Ellis/Wher/Zakleski 'Para Mamluk' carpet, early 16th century, 141 x 207cm. Romain Zaleski Collection, courtesy Moshe Tabibnia, Milan
Curated by Claudia Cremonini, Moshe Tabibnia and John Valagussa, ‘Sérénissime Trame’ is the first museum presentation of antique oriental carpets from the Zaleski Collection, with 25 loan examples from this important collection, probably the most complete in the world, together with three from the historic Franchetti Collection, which have been conserved for permanent display in the Venetian museum. Organised by the Museum Centre of Veneto and the Tassara Foundation of Brescia, the event is a tribute to the collecting passion of Baron Giorgio Franchetti, patron and founder of the state museum of Ca’ d’Oro, whose own interests included carpets as part of a love of the decorative arts.
The Franchetti 'Small-Pattern Holbein' Rug (detail), Anatolia, 15th/16th century
The exhibition also offers a rare opportunity, using antique carpets matched with precious paintings, to illuminate the collecting passion of two men separated by a century in time: Giorgio Franchetti, who donated the Ca’ d’Oro and its collections to the city of Venice at the beginning the 20th century; and the entrepreneur Romain Zaleski, Franco-Polish by birth, Italian by adoption, who formed the non-profit Tassara Foundation in 2008 and gifted it his family’s collection 1,325 antique carpets from all over the world in 2014, with the aim of creating a museum dedicated to their preservation and presentation to scholars and the public.
