Hadi Maktabi

Tuesday, July 28, 2020

10 am New York / 5 pm Beirut

The talk will run in parallel to his recently published book, investigating Persian carpet history in the post-Safavid years and up to the Ziegler-led commercial revival. Historical examples from this time period will be shown live as well as additional highlights from Hadi’s collection.

Born into the 4th generation of the Middle East’s oldest dealership of Oriental & antique carpets, Hadi Maktabi initially specialised in Mathematics at Oxford University before completing his PhD in Islamic Art with a focus on Carpet Studies under the tutelage of the late Jon Thompson. A regular contributor to Hali and other academic journals, Hadi taught Art History at the American University of Beirut for ten years before founding his own gallery for antique carpets & textiles in Beirut. His main focus is the period of 150 years linking (or separating?) the Safavid Age to the Revival era, which formed the topic of his doctoral thesis and subsequently was developed for his book The Persian Carpet: The Forgotten Years (2019). In 2018 Hadi was the recipient of the inaugural Carpet Star Award for Exemplary Antique Carpet Retailer, presented by Carpet Collector Magazine (Hamburg) and Domotex Trade Fair (Hanover).