Here in Malta, we have always regarded Oriental carpets as having a dual role. We are appreciative of their practical function of warming and decorating our home, but we have never been oblivious to their aesthetic and antiquarian appeal. Oriental carpets feature in old inventories of Maltese homes and in visual records too. Suffice to mention the well known and avidly collected paintings of still lives which are posed on Oriental rugs.

Oriental carpets bring a flavour of the exotic into our homes. The term ”Oriental carpets” encompasses ones from far flung places spanning from Morocco to China, some of which we may not be all that familiar with. Though undoubtedly beautiful and incredibly varied in texture, design and colour, these very elements help to date the carpet and identify its origin. The design of a carpet is usually intrinsic to a particular tribe, and the stylised elements making up the design are generally symbolic of an object from nature, be it a specific plant or animal. These designs are repeated within a particular tribe, passed down from generation to generation, until they form an unbroken chain that spans centuries. The carpets produced by any one tribe are however never identical, and each carpet is considered an original artefact in its own right.

Despite the obvious interest that Oriental carpets evoke in Malta, little has been written about them locally. It is to this end that Palazzo Falson Historic House Museum together with Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti (FPM) have invited Jennifer Wearden, Oriental carpet expert, to visit Malta in order to study the significant collection of Oriental carpets – which totals over 80 antique carpets – in the Palazzo Falson collection. Ms Wearden’s resulting study will be included in a forthcoming book, to be published by FPM, along with contributions from various experts in their field about the Palazzo Falson collections.

Ms Wearden was curator at the Victoria & Albert Museum for 28 years and was responsible for the Museum's collection of European and Oriental carpets. She recently retired as Senior Curator of Textiles in the Department of Furniture, Textiles & Dress and is currently an honorary Research Fellow with the Victoria & Albert Museum, engaged in cataloguing Persian 19th century textiles, and writing a book on this subject. She is the author of a lavish Victoria and Albert Museum publication on Oriental carpets and has co-authored other V&A publications on subjects such as embroidery, dress from around the world and samplers.

Ms Wearden’s talk is at the Phoenicia Hotel tomorrow at 6.30 p.m. Entrance is free but seats will be allocated on a first come, first served basis.