Prayer rug exhibition at the Textile Museum

Category: Exhibitions

The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum will host a prayer rug exhibition ‘Prayer and Transcendence’ 18 February – 1 July 2023 in Washington DC.

Spanning the 16th through 19th centuries, the prayer rugs on display will be drawn from five collections; The Textile Museum Collection, Harvard Art Museums, Cincinnati Art Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Markarian Collection.

Examples on display from western Anatolia, the Caucasus and Iran all share a central arch surrounded by vegetation and flowers.

Prayer carpet; Safavid Empire
Prayer carpet; Safavid Empire, Iran, Qazvin or Tabriz; 16th century. Metropolitan Museum of Art 17.120.124. Mr. and Mrs. Issac D. Fletcher Collection, bequest of Issac D. Fletcher, 1917.
Prayer carpet; Turkey
Prayer carpet; Turkey, western Anatolia; Uşak; 18th century. The Textile Museum Collection R34.22.1. Acquired by George Hewitt Myers in 1925.

Held in conjunction with the exhibition ‘Prayer and Transcendence’ there will be a two-day virtual event ‘Prayer Carpets Colloquium’ 21-22 March 2023.  Speakers include Walter Denny, Deniz Beyazit, Suzan Bayraktaroğlu, Şerife Atlıhan, Idries Trevathan, Fatima Žutic, Alberto Boralevi, Turgut Saner and Hülya Bilgi. More information and registration for this virtual event can be found at connect.gwu.edu.

More information and location: ‘Prayer and Transcendence’ 18 February – 1 July 2023, George Washington University Museum/The Textile Museum, 701 21st St. NW Washington, DC


Find books by Walter B. Denny, Alberto Boralevi, Suzan Bayraktaroglu, Serife Atlihan,



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