FABRICATING THE WORLD SERIES 2023 (1) | WEAVING THE IMPERIAL BRAND | MUGHAL INDIA: On the 17th century ‘Trinitarias’ carpet with Susan Scollay

In this new series for 2023 Susan Scollay will discuss three significant oriental carpets from three historical eastern empires and how they came to be in Australian museum collections.

The series focuses on three well-travelled examples of textile art in Australian collections. Each has an established provenance and an interesting, highly mobile, life story, while remaining little known to the public.

All three have their origins in the Islamic world and have found their way to Europe and then to Australia through gift giving, commerce, the evolution of the collecting patterns of private and institutional collectors, or simply by chance.

The first is the so-called ‘Trinitarias’ carpet, purchased by the NGV in 1958 as a seventeenth century Persian carpet with links to European royalty. Extensive tests carried out in more recent years, confirmed the magnificent carpet’s age but reattributed its likely place of origin to Mughal India.

DR SUSAN SCOLLAY is an independent art historian specialising in Islamic art and culture and in historic textiles. She is a contributing editor to HALI, the prestigious London-based journal of carpet, textile, and Islamic art, is a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain, and an honorary fellow in art history and curatorship at the University of Melbourne.

Susan has lectured at The Johnston Collection since 2008 and in 2010 was guest curator of FLUID BORDERS: Ways of Seeing Oriental Rugs. FABRICATING THE WORLD | WEAVING THE IMPERIAL BRAND continues a series of lectures especially convened by Susan Scollay for TJC.

This lecture is presented on-site at TJC. Please see your ticket for details.

This lecture is supported by The Colin Holden Charitable Trust.

image caption | detail of the ‘Trinitarias’ carpet, Northern India, early seventeenth century-mid seventeenth century, wool pile, cotton warp and weft | 1044.0 × 336.5 cm, collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Felton Bequest, 1959, 91-D5, Public Domain