Stefano Ionescu will hold a lecture and book presentation Sunday 5 October 2025 at 16.00 at Museum Fünf Kontinente in Munich as a part of the Carpet Diem series.
The lecture Transylvanian Rugs: Landmarks and Controversial Issues will be held in English and the presentation slides have German captions. Admission fee is 10 €.
The Lutheran churches of Transylvania house one of the richest and best-preserved collections of Anatolian carpets, including Ottoman carpets from the 16th–18th centuries, such as Holbein, Ushak, Lotto, and Selendi carpets, as well as the so-called Transylvanian rugs.
In his new book, The Transylvanian Heritage. Ottoman Carpets 1450 to 1750 – A New Perspective (2024), Stefano Ionescu expands his research to collections across the Levant, Europe, and the USA, exploring connections to Ottoman architecture and historical representations in paintings and manuscripts. The release of the book “The Transylvanian Heritage” took place in Istanbul in June 2024 and coinsided with the International Conference on Oriental Carpets.
Ionescu’s lecture will address disputed questions about classical Anatolian carpets, demonstrating how his latest findings contribute to this fascinating yet controversial topic.
Stefano Ionescu was born in Romania in 1951, has lived in Rome since 1975, and has spent more than twenty years studying Anatolian carpets. He authored Antique Ottoman Rugs in Transylvania (2006), a standard reference work, and organizes rug study tours to Transylvania, Turkey and other countries. During the opening ceremony of ICOC Stockholm 2011 Stefano Ionescu together with Alberto Boralevi received the McMullan Award. As a special project, Ionescu has commissioned high-quality replicas of Transylvanian carpets to be produced in Sultanhani, using hand-carded and hand-spun wool, natural dyes, and traditional techniques.
For more information you can visit the Museum Fünf Kontinente’s official webpage (German language) for the lecture Transylvanian Rugs: Landmarks and Controversial Issues.
Location: Museum Fünf Kontinente, Staatliche Museen in Bayern, Maximilianstraße 42, 80538 München