Reassembling a Persian Beauty & How To Kill a Moth – Tips and Tricks To Preserve Your Treasures

National Arts Club — Sculpture Court
15 Gramercy Park South (E 20th St), NYC

Doors open at 6:00 PM.
Meeting starts at 6:30 PM.
Business attire, please,
with a jacket for the gentlemen.

This will be a unique evening for the Hajji Baba Club. Ms. Beselin will present two independent lectures. Each lecture will cover a different topic but both have to do with the challenges faced by modern textile conservators.

Reassembling a Persian Beauty – A few years ago the Museum fuer Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg purchased a fragment of an early Safavid Court Carpet. This fragment belongs to another fragment that has been on display at the Museum for many years. In a unique collaboration with The Museum of Islamic Arts in Berlin these two fragments are being rejoined after decades of separation. On the occasion of the reopening of the Museum’s Islamic Gallery in Hamburg this coming spring, the carpet will be presented to the public in its original size and beauty for the first time in many years. This talk will give an inside view of the restoration and show a picture of the reassembled carpet. Ms. Beselin will also look at other carpet fragments and compare them during the presentation.

How To Kill a Moth – Tips and tricks to preserve your treasures. This lecture will give answers to everything you’ve always wanted to know about carpet care but were afraid to ask! Demonstrations will show how to store, handle and hang your carpets and textiles while preventing long-term damage. The impact of climate changes and sunlight will be explained and why that impact should not be underestimated. Do’s and don’ts to eliminate pest infestations will be discussed. Some techniques to secure brittle sections of rugs without doing additional damage and “last but not least” the necessity of cleaning your pieces.

After completing museum internships in Berlin and Turkey Ms. Beselin began her conservation career at the Spuhler Gallery in Berlin. Since 2001 she has been the Senior Textile Conservator at The Museum of Islamic Arts in Berlin where she is responsible for over 1,300 carpets and textiles in the collection. She will also be responsible for the supervision, conservation, restoration and installation of the objects in a new permanent gallery at the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin opening in 2020.

Ms. Beselin has an MA in European Art History and Medieval History Studies. Her thesis was “Oriental Carpets in European Paintings.” Ms. Beselin is also a skilled tailor.

(image: detail Safvaid Court Carpet, Olaf Tessmer, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin & Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg)