Link to the Textile Museum webpage
BRUCE BAGANZ
George Hewitt Myers Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Textile Arts
Presentation to Mr. Romain Zaleski and Mr. Moshe Tabibnia
September 18th, 2025
Welcome everyone with us this evening, and also, to the countless others who are watching on the livestream on the internet via Zoom.
We are gathered to present the George Hewitt Myers Award for lifetime achievement and significant contributions in the textile arts to Mr. Romain Zaleski and Mr. Moshe Tabibnia. Named for the founder of The Textile Museum, and presented by the Board of Trustees of the Museum, this is the single highest international accolade in the field of textile arts.
Known to their many friends and admirers, both Mr. Zaleski and Mr. Tabibnia principally reside in Milan, Italy.
Mr. Zaleski is a French engineer, entrepreneur and businessman who owns arguably the most important private collection of antique carpets in the world.
Mr. Tabibnia is an art connoisseur, owner of the Moshe Tabibnia Collection, and publisher of some of the finest art books on carpets and textiles.
We are honored to have with us tonight members of both Mr. Zaleski’s and Mr. Tabibnia’s families. All traveled from Europe and made tremendous effort to be here.
With us are Mr. Zaleski’s sons Wladimir and Konstantin, and his daughter Hélène.
And importantly, also Karin Dobbin, Mr. Tabibnia’s spouse is with us.
Additionally, Mr. Flavio Pasotti, the general manager of the MITA Cultural Center in Brescia, Italy. You will hear more about the MITA Cultural Center tonight. It is the repository of some 1330 carpets in the Zaleski Collection.
Each of you honor us, and revere Mr. Zaleski and Mr. Tabibnia with your presence. Thank you for being here.
I first met Mr. Tabibnia in the mid-1990’s. Casually at first, we would encounter one another at carpet events or at previews of Islamic Art auctions where carpets and textiles were on offer. Oh dear… he was a connoisseur with resources that could not be competed with. Later, I would see Mr. Tabibnia with his friend Mr. Zaleski together in places such as Hagop Manoyan’s New York City carpet gallery or at auction houses.
Eventually, Moshe and I became fast friends. His warmth and knowledge resonate. Always, I learn much from him. He is a trusted advisor with much to share about taste and aesthetics.
In 2023, as chairman of the Near Eastern Art Research Center, I had the pleasure of being joined by Ben Evans of Hali Publications in presenting to both Mr. Zaleski and Mr. Tabibnia the Joseph V. McMullan Award for stewardship and scholarship in Islamic textiles. Named for one of America’s greatest carpet collectors in the 20th century, the McMullan Award is the highest honor in the field of carpets. Joseph McMullan’s collection principally resides in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and also in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Fine Arts Boston and in The Textile Museum. The Textile Museum’s main gallery in its former home was named in honor of Mr. McMullan. This 2023 McMullan Award presentation was held in Milan, and at the opening celebration of the MITA Cultural Center in Brescia where I first met Wladimir, Konstantin and Hélène Zaleski, and also Flavio Pasotti.
Mr. Zaleski’s carpet collection represents 50 years of collecting with over 1,300 masterpiece carpets from 3 continents dating from the 15th to the 19th centuries. This is among the most complete private collections in existence today.
Excerpted from an Mr. Zaleski interview in La Gazette Drouot:
Question: How did your passion for carpets come about?
Answer by Mr. Zaleski: “I made my first purchase in 1956, when I was a soldier in the French Army in Morocco. This carpet was worthless. I went on to buy many others, of no greater importance. I just wanted to furnish my home in Milan. Following a flood in the 1980s, I began to take an interest in this world, which had been unknown to me until then.
I went to a dealer in the Bergamo area to replace my damaged carpets. After laughing at their poor quality, he took me into his back store and showed me some much nicer ones. I returned home with four rugs under my arm and, above all, a new passion. My carpet collection now consists of over 1,330 pieces, all of which are housed in Brescia. I also have a collection of around a hundred tapestries.”
Question: What's the most important quality to become a great carpet collector?
Answer by Mr. Zaleski: “You have to be quick. You have to have the eye to seize opportunities on the market.”
Mr. Tabibnia’s art connoisseurship extended beyond carpets and textiles. He built a private art facility in Milan, the Building Gallery, which hosts exhibitions for various contemporary artists.
The Moshe Tabibnia Collection itself is housed in a stunningly beautiful gallery in Milan.
Among Mr. Tabibnia’s publications is the magnificent, Milestones in the History of Carpets, featuring some of Mr. Zaleski’s carpets. The text for Milestones was authored by Dr. Jon Thompson, the 2009 recipient of the Myers Award.
Is Moshe Tabibnia the modern equivalent of Stefano Bardini (1836-1922)? There are parallels with the scale of their respective collections. Bardini was a Florence-based Italian connoisseur and art dealer of paintings, sculpture, antiquities, architectural furnishings, and carpets. Many well-known works bear Bardini’s provenance. These include at the National Gallery of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Continuing after his lifetime, Bardini’s children and their children continued with their father’s business. Today, the Bardini Museum in Florence is composed of Bardini’s unsold collection after 3 generations. It is a must see, fascinating museum.
It is now my privilege to present the 2025 George Hewitt Myers Award for lifetime achievement in the textile arts to Mr. Romain Zaleski and Mr. Moshe Tabibnia.
Congratulation to you both.
It is now my delight to introduce Karin Dobbin, spouse of Moshe Tabibnia.
It is now my pleasure to introduce Flavio Pasotti of the Tassara Foundation and the MITA Cultural Center in Brescia.
MOSHE TABIBNIA
Acceptance speech
Ladies and Gentlemen, distinguished colleagues and dear friends,
It is with profound humility and heartfelt gratitude that Romain Zaleski and I are here this evening to be recognized with the George Hewitt Myers Award for lifetime achievement in the textile arts.
We would like to thank The Textile Museum and its affiliation partner, the George Washington University. Our thanks extend to Ellen Granberg, President of the George Washington University and Bruce Baganz, chairman of the Textile Museums Board of Trustees.
We are grateful to all the trustees of The Textile Museum, many we have known and appreciated for a very long time. Additionally, it is our great pleasure to meet the other members of the Textile Museum’s board of trustees and the trustees of the George Washington Museum and the Textile Museum and together with the museum's management and staff.
We are profoundly grateful to be recognized amongst the past recipients for this most prestigious international award, all of whom have made a huge impact in the world of textile art.
I am filled with sincere appreciation and profound respect being amongst all of you this evening, here at the Textile Museum in Washington, a place that has long served as a beacon of scholarship, preservation, and inspiration for all of us who find meaning in the warp and weft of textile art.
To receive the George Hewitt Myers Award here, surrounded by individuals who have devoted their lives to the study, preservation, and celebration of this art form, is a moment I will always carry with me.
My name is Moshe Tabibnia, and for over four decades, I have chosen to dedicate my life to beauty, art, and particularly textile art.
I have lived this journey as a gallerist, a collector, a scholar but more than anything, as a custodian.
A custodian of memory.
For me, this is not simply a profession, but a mission. A way to uncover, protect, and share the silent stories woven into the warps and wefts of ancient textiles. Each piece is a fragment of human history, a testament to lost worlds, forgotten hands, and artistic brilliance that still echoes through time.
My journey began in 1982, but it found its true voice a decade later, in 1992, when I opened my gallery in Milan, Italy, a space that still, more than thirty years later, remains the headquarters of my activity. Some of the greatest privileges of my career have stemmed from working closely with discerning collectors and institutions worldwide.
Foremost among them, the collaboration and friendship with Romain Zaleski, an industrialist, entrepreneur, collector in many fields, and a wise and generous philanthropist, who is with us here tonight, and whose presence honors me deeply. Ours has been a journey of shared purpose and discovery, built on friendship, trust, and an insatiable passion for beauty.
Over more than thirty years, we have travelled the globe together, visiting museums, exhibitions, auctions and private collections, tirelessly and joyfully assembling what is now one of the most important private collections of carpets and textiles in the world, spanning from the 15th to the 19th century.
Romain, your trust and vision have made this journey not only significant but truly meaningful. It has been an honor beyond words.
Romain’s wife and best friend, Helen de Prittwiz Zaleski, who sadly left us last year, was a huge energy and force behind this collection. Her enthusiasm and unwavering eye for beauty led us to assemble a collection of over one hundred early European tapestries that later, I had the honor to publish in a book.
I cannot speak of this path without also honoring Marino Dall’Oglio, one of the most passionate, informed collectors I have ever known. With his wife Klara, they assembled a remarkable collection of tapestries, carpets, and textiles, a legacy I was privileged to carry forward. Marino and Klara are no longer with us, but their spirit lives on in the works they loved and in the memory of their quiet, dignified passion.
Together, Romain and Marino were and remain pillars in my life.
And yet, I was also fortunate to walk alongside many other collectors who have shaped the field with their generosity and curiosity. How could I not mention the late Alessandro Bruschettini, whose foundation continues to enrich our understanding of Islamic and textile art through groundbreaking exhibitions and publications. A true patron and visionary. And among the new generation of collectors, I warmly acknowledge Paz Littman, a dear friend and a discerning eye, whose dedication to carpets over the past two decades signals a bright future for this field. It gives me hope to see this passion carried forward with such sincerity and depth.
Over the years, my pursuit of textile art has taken on the character of a quest often a hunt, yes, but not just for objects. For meaning, for origin, for presence. There is a kind of thrill in these searches, but also a sense of profound responsibility.
I remember vividly the moment I learned of the magnificent, large-pattern Holbein carpet, which likely arrived in Venice in the early 15th century. It had remained in Venice, passed from hand to hand, until it reappeared in the Carlo Monzino Collection sale at the Finarte Semenzato auction house in Venice in 2002. This magnificent carpet was discovered under a bed, where it had been for a very long time. I remember viewing the auction with Romain, it was miscatalogued with a very low estimate. In the end, I was, in fact, bidding against several knowledgeable bidders who perfectly knew the right value and importance of this carpet. After a long and determined struggle, it, became part of my gallery’s collection. Subsequently, it entered the Zaleski Collection.
Then the extraordinary Karapinar medallion carpet. Miscatalogued and previously unpublished, surfaced at an auction in Asheville, North Carolina in 2003. A grainy photograph reached me through Elizabeth Parker, who is with us tonight, thank you Elizabeth! and passed through the hands of Karin before landing in mine. The image was small, but what it conveyed was immense. I was on the next flight to Newark. During the taxi ride, I received many phone calls, including one from Mary Jo Otsea, who is also with us tonight. There was a brewing of excitement around this carpet. Once I set eyes on this Karapinar in person, I knew it was one of the most important carpets to appear on the market in the last decades. From there, it entered my gallery’s collection, and subsequently, it found its rightful place in the Zaleski Collection.
Or, in recent years, the “Deering” vase technique Kirman, misidentified and misjudged in a Florida auction, yet carrying the distinguished provenance of the legendary Deering Collection. A rare case where fate and study aligned perfectly.
Perhaps the most poetic moment of my life’s work, thus far, was the acquisition of a fragment of the Basel tapestry. Around the same time, I had been visiting museums and institutions housing similar tapestries studying them all, uncertain if it still existed or would ever surface again. After a few very long stressful and exhausting days of negotiations, as if preordained, it entered the collection of my gallery. The months leading up to this acquisition now seem like a silent preparation, a path that life had laid out for me to be ready when the time came.
These are not mere anecdotes, they are reflections of what it means to be a guardian of cultural memory. Each piece is more than a textile. It is a vessel of human spirit, an artifact of lived experience, a chapter in the history of art and civilization.
To preserve them is to preserve a part of who we are.
Equally memorable has been the exhibition I’ve had the honor to co-curate. The landmark exhibition at the Galleria Giorgio Franchetti at Ca’d’Oro in Venice. Dedicated entirely to the Zaleski Collection, where classical carpets entered into dialogue with Italian master painters of the 15th and 16th centuries. It was an unforgettable celebration of cross-cultural beauty.
At the Triennale di Milano, the exhibition Intrecci del Novecento and the simultaneous publication, are the fruit of five years of research, connecting textiles to the broader narrative of 20th-century art. A passion that also inspired me, to found BUILDING in 2017, a contemporary art gallery and publishing house. BUILDING is a six-floor palazzo in the heart of Milan,
entirely dedicated to my wider love for art, discovered in more recent years and that being contemporary art.
Tonight, I feel it is also important for me to mention two more people my dear friend, the late Jon Thompson, with whom I collaborated for “Milestones”. This book, which we created together, studying and telling the stories of 30 masterpieces from the 15th to the 17th centuries that originated from the main dynasties of that period, Ming of China, Mughal of India, Safavid of Persia, Ottoman of Turkey and Mamluk of Egypt. It will always remain the masterpiece of the publications by Gallery Moshe Tabibnia.
And finally, the late Nello Forti Grazzini, one of the most knowledgeable scholars in the field of European tapestries.
His expertise and knowledge have been instrumental in working on the project, and the publication of The Tapestries in the Zaleski Collection.
Through all of this, I have never walked alone.
These achievements belong equally to the scholars whose research brought context, to the conservators whose hands brought renewal to the collectors whose passion gave these works a home, and to museums like this one,
which ensure that the public can see, learn from, and appreciate these extraordinary works of art.
On a more personal note, I must thank my family. Their support through long days and endless travel, their quiet presence behind every major decision — it is a debt of love I carry proudly.
I also thank the members of my galleries, both past and present. I want to highlight and recognize their dedication to research, conservation, and loyalty.
As I accept this Award tonight, I am also deeply grateful for having previously received the MacMullan Award, another recognition that continues to humble me. For the MacMullan Award, for the George Hewitt Myers Award, and for so many other adventures, on a personal and professional level, that I have not enough time to mention all in my speech tonight.
I want to express my sincere gratitude to Bruce Baganz, whose unwavering commitment has been crucially important for the Textile Museum.
Bruce, your tireless work ensures that the legacy of textile art continues to thrive, not just as scholarship, but as inspiration for future generations.
Your passion guarantees that those who come after us will continue to approach these works with reverence, curiosity, and wonder.
Bruce has been building his private collection with precision and dedication over the span of many years.
His extensive knowledge of the world of Suzani’s is to become a “milestone” book in the near future.
This award is not just a recognition of my life’s work
it is, more importantly, a celebration of the art form itself.
A reminder of the enduring relevance of textiles
in a world too quick to forget the value of the handmade, the historical, the sacred.
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for this honor. It is a privilege to share it with all of you.
Grazie.
