Enthralled by the optical and tactile qualities of textiles, the Austrian psychiatrist and neurologist, Gerhard Foitl, began to collect elaborately woven bands in the late 1970s. Today the Gerhard Foitl Collection comprises 737 objects, including bands to decorate animals and straps for bearing loads from Central Asia that feature depictions of humans and animals, yurt-straps from Turkmenistan, a magnificent silk belt from Safavid Persia, a woven pilgrim’s souvenir from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, raffia textiles from the Bakuba in Zaire, cloths and embroideries from Zaire, Latin America, India and Morocco. The materials, dyes and techniques of all these textile artefacts have been comprehensively analyzed, researched and documented.
This outstanding collection will be presented to the Museum of Ethnology after the end of the exhibition.


Straps and Bands: Textiles fron the Foitl Collection
Museum of Ethnology, Vienna
19 November 2008 - 2 March 2009