A Chinese Carpet in the Medici Collections: New Evidence for Sinology and Cross‑Cultural Exchange

For centuries, a large needlework carpet stored at the Pitti Palace in Florence was catalogued as Persian, Turkish, or, more recently, European. A new study by Ilenia Pittui of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, published in Kervan – International Journal of Afro‑Asiatic Studies, demonstrates that the carpet is in fact a 17th‑century Chinese production. The investigation combines close visual examination, diagnostic material analysis, and archival research, and it calls into question the origins of two comparable pieces at the Topkapı Palace Museum in Istanbul and the Louvre Museum in Paris.
The object (inv. no. MPP 10562) is a large table carpet made of four pieces of red plain cut velvet, measuring over four metres in length and two metres in width. The velvet is embroidered in gold and polychrome silk with phytomorphic decoration. Long considered a Persian or Turkish “Oriental carpet”, and more recently proposed as European, the study instead identifies it as a “Macao embroidery” – a luxury textile produced in the Portuguese enclave of Macao that deliberately emulates 17th‑century Persian carpet motifs. Tracing exchanges between Asia and the Mediterranean, the research places the carpet’s entry into the Florentine collections in the first half of the 18th century.
The investigation began in March 2023 in the studio of carpet expert Alberto Boralevi. On 13 May 2024, Pittui worked with a team including Boralevi, Giovanni Curatola, Marina Carmignani, and textile conservators Carla Molin Pradel and Jasmine Sartor. Permission was obtained from the Uffizi Galleries to remove a lining applied during a 1977 restoration by Alfredo Clignon and Marietta Vermigli. Under the lining, golden characters painted near the selvedges were revealed. The legible characters are Chinese. Clignon had recorded them in his report as “in an Oriental language” and “in Chinese”; without that record, the information might have been lost. Diagnostic analysis of fibres, dyes, and paper gold by Silvia Bruni and Margherita Longoni (University of Milan) confirmed consistency with Chinese production techniques.
Two other comparable pieces exist: an analogous needlework carpet of similar size, thought to be Ottoman, at Topkapı Palace Museum, Istanbul; and another, considered Indian or Persian, in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs collections at the Louvre. The next step is to determine whether all three share a common workshop and origin. An international exhibition is planned, possibly in conjunction with the 2027 International Conference on Oriental Carpets in Italy.
Why this discovery matters for sinology and cross‑cultural studies
The carpet provides direct physical evidence – not a painted motif but an actual imported object – of Chinese luxury textile production for European markets in the 17th century. Most studies of Chinese export art focus on porcelain and lacquer; textiles have been understudied. This carpet offers sinologists a documented Chinese embroidery that deliberately imitates Safavid Persian patterns, revealing how Chinese workshops adapted to foreign demand while maintaining their own technical practices.
For cross‑cultural studies, the carpet’s trajectory – produced in Macao, emulating Persian designs, shipped to Europe, entered the Medici collections, and repeatedly misattributed – traces a concrete network of material circulation. Its long misidentification as Persian or Turkish exposes the persistence of orientalist categories in museum cataloguing. The case also highlights the value of conservation records as primary sources: a restorer’s note from 1977, left unacted upon for decades, became the key to unlocking the carpet’s true origin.
If the three carpets in Florence, Istanbul, and Paris are confirmed as Macao embroideries from a common workshop, it would transform our understanding of 17th‑century Chinese textile export. For both sinology and cross‑cultural studies, the Pitti carpet is no longer a footnote but a cornerstone for rethinking the global circulation of Chinese luxury goods.