Stefano Bardini and the Art of Textiles: Silks, Tapestries, Carpets and Historical Clothing

The exhibition explores the world of textiles and decorative arts through the work of Stefano Bardini, the celebrated “Prince of Antiquarians”, and his daughter and his son, Emma and Ugo.
On display are precious silks, Oriental carpets, tapestries, historical clothing and archival documents that illustrate the connections between art, fashion, trade and craftsmanship in Stefano Bardini’s world.
The exhibition brings together more than fifty works from the Bardini Legacy, some of which are being displayed for the first time. They are presented alongside the city’s museum collections and loans from other museums.
The exhibition explores the history of the workshops, manufacturers and skilled artisans who contributed to the Bardini family’s activities, bringing ancient artefacts into dialogue with modern productions.
Highlights include particularly interesting carpets, among them a previously unseen example signed by Paul Follot, prestigious tapestries from the Borghese collection and textile creations such as Fortuny fabric.
The exhibition also features a selection of historical clothing and accessories spanning several centuries: from a sixteenth-century women's linen shirt to a Baroque bodice, from an eighteenth-century men's coat to Salvatore Ferragamo sandals with cork wedge soles that belonged to Emma Bardini.
Paintings, photographs, letters, correspondence, inventories and artefacts document an international antiques business that brought together artisan workshops, restorers, manufacturers, collectors and museums.
The exhibition offers an opportunity to discover the world of Stefano Bardini and the artistic, historical and commercial value of the Bardini family’s textile collections.
 

The Exhibition: Five Sections Dedicated to the World of Textiles

The exhibition is organised into five thematic sections spread across the museum’s ground and first floors.
The exhibition highlights the role of textiles in the activities of Stefano Bardini and his children, Emma and Ugo. For the Bardini family, textile objects were prestigious possessions, symbols of social status, sought-after goods on the antiques market and sources of inspiration for contemporary production.

1. The Style and Image of the Bardini Family
The exhibition opens with an exploration of the Bardini family’s style and public image, which they developed through art, fashion and personal choices between the late nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth century.
Emma Bardini, a painter and multilingual intellectual, personalised her clothes with refined decorative applications. Ugo Bardini, an artist and collector, embraced the image of the dandy.
This section displays items from Emma’s wardrobe, together with sandals by Salvatore Ferragamo featuring cork soles.
Portraits and private documents also offer an insight into the family’s surroundings, social relationships and receptions held at Villa Bardini.

2. Suppliers, Clients and the International Market
An important section of the exhibition focuses on Stefano Bardini’s suppliers and buyers, documenting the international scope of his business.
His network of contacts included specialised workshops in Florence and manufacturers in Paris, Berlin and London.
Bardini acquired wool, silk, velvet and antique artefacts through a network of correspondents, including the collector and dealer Adolf von Beckerath and the Parisian supplier Pierre Legendre.
His clientele was equally international and included major museums of applied arts and European and American collectors.
Among the documented episodes are his relationship with the South Kensington Museum in London, which also purchased a fragment of a Persian carpet recommended by William Morris, and his connection with the art historian Wilhelm von Bode.

3. Inventories, Photographs and Tools for Studying Collections
To identify, document and enhance the value of his artefacts, Stefano Bardini used a range of cataloguing and research tools, including inventories, sample collections, books and photographs.
The exhibition features textile fragments still bearing numbered labels, commercial registers, bibliographic reference works and the photographic album Collection Bardini, Étoffes anciennes.
These materials made it possible to study the objects and textiles, document their provenance and present the collections to clients and collectors, even those living far away.
The archive reveals the organisation and professionalism behind the Bardini antiques business.

4. Tapestries: Trade, Restoration and Craft Workshops
One section is devoted to tapestries, highly sought-after objects on the antiques market that were often reassembled and adapted.
Photographs and archival documents make it possible to reconstruct the history of the Four Seasons series, probably originally intended for Palazzo Salviati al Corso, and to explore the reuse of antique fragments as upholstery for furniture.
Among the works on display is a pair of chairs upholstered with mille fleurs tapestry, from the Medici Villa of Cerreto Guidi. These objects illustrate the relationship between textile production and furniture decoration.
A further focus is the tapestry workshop and the work of its artisans, particularly the women.
A letter dated 1899 documents Stefano Bardini’s plan to entrust supervision of the workshop to the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul and to train new specialised female workers.
A list from 1900 records twenty-three female workers, many of them very young.
Letters, regulations and requests for financial support reveal not only how weaving and restoration techniques were passed on, but also the actual working conditions of the women employed in the workshop.
The workshop ceased operations in 1901, although other craft skills continued to be used by the Bardini business.

5. Oriental Carpets, Historical Textiles and Period Clothing
Oriental carpets played an important role in the antiques market and in the study of Islamic arts during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Emma Bardini’s memoirs preserve an anecdote about the celebrated sale of a carpet to Baron Adolphe de Rothschild.
Photographs, publications and correspondence also document the interest shown by European scholars and manufacturers in these artefacts.
The carpets on display, together with an example illustrating weaving or restoration practices, demonstrate the relationship between antique pieces, decorative patterns and modern production.
A particularly significant section focuses on historical textiles through the reconstruction of a display case from the “Room of Fabrics” (Stanza delle stoffe), arranged by Ugo Bardini at Palazzo Mozzi.
The display has been recreated using the original artefacts, with the help of photographs from the 1970s.
Velvets, damasks, lampas fabrics and taffetas dating from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century illustrate the Bardini family’s approach to displaying and presenting textiles.
This selection is complemented by fabrics and lace from the Funghini Collection at the National Museum of Medieval and Modern Art in Arezzo.
The documentation also recalls the invitation extended to Stefano Bardini to take part in the Exhibition of Textiles and Lace held in Rome in 1887, although his name does not appear in the catalogue.
The dialogue between ancient and modern textiles is also reflected in the fabrics created by Mariano Fortuny, which reinterpret decorative influences from the past.
The exhibition concludes with a section devoted to historical clothing and accessories, featuring garments dating from the Renaissance to the eighteenth century.
Among the objects on display are:

• A sixteenth-century women's linen shirt decorated with embroidery.
• A seventeenth-century bodice in Genoese velvet.
• An eighteenth-century men's coat with a matching waistcoat.
• Historical headwear and bags.

Restoration work has made it possible to recover and study the materials, tailoring techniques and decorations of these garments, restoring their value as important objects in the history of costume.
 

Included with the Firenzecard