For Tent and Trade: Masterpieces of Turkmen Weaving
December 15, 2007 — September 1, 2008

This exhibition features selected masterpieces from the Fine Arts Museums' extraordinary collection of Turkmen carpets and tent trappings from Central Asia. More than 40 examples are on view in the Textile Gallery, almost all given to the Museums in the past twenty years by four major donors: H.T. McCoy Jones, whose 1987 bequest established the collection; his wife Caroline McCoy Jones, who collected in her own right; longtime San Francisco residents Wolfgang and Gisela Wiedersperg; and George and Marie Hecksher, who in recent years added to the collection some of its earliest and rarest objects. Also on view are five striking mantles embroidered and worn by women of three different Turkmen tribes. All are masterpieces of Central Asian embroidery on loan to the Museums from the Marshall and Marilyn R. Wolf collection in New York.