August 2022, National History Museum of Transylvania
In August, two fragments of an Anatolian carpet from the 17th century, from the heritage of the Cluj History Museum, were exhibited, as well as a complete copy of it. The replica was recently made at Sultankhani (Republic of Turkey) and was received by the Cluj museum as a donation from Mr. Ștefan (Stefano) Ionescu, a renowned specialist in oriental carpets, based in Rome.
The two original fragments constitute a prayer carpet from the first half of the 17th century, coming from Western Anatolia and being part of the group of so-called "Transylvanian" carpets, a conventional name that was adopted at the beginning of the 20th century, precisely due to the massive presence of this kind of carpets in Transylvania. The fragments that were exhibited in the mini-exhibition were purchased by the former Ardelean National Museum in Cluj at the beginning of the 20th century. In all probability these were part of the heritage of a reformed church in Transylvania.
In making the replica, quality photos from the MNIT photo library were used, which were completed with motifs taken from similar carpets, following an in-depth study. All this allowed the creation of a knot-by-knot drawing made by Ana Jankar, a student at the Faculty of Architecture in Sorrento (Italy), who attended the carpet design course within the program Building Beauty, supported in that city by the American specialist Christopher Andrews.
The actual replica of the carpet was made in Sultanhanı (a town between Aksaray and Konya, Turkey), in the workshop of the Solak family. Due to the density of the knots (in the present case with 2500 knots/decimetre) the actual weaving took 5 months, being done by Hanife Solak. The process used wool hand-spun by women from the respective village, in natural colors and using the traditional technique of Turkish knotted carpets.
We also thank Mr. Șefan Ionescu for his generous and valuable donation.
