A fascinating journey through garments, headgear, and accessories dating back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries from China, the Himalayan region, the Indian subcontinent, and the historic regions of Turkestan in Central Asia with the legendary Samarkand, Bukhara, and Khiva: this is the new setup of the Civic Textile Collections at Palazzo Bianco, in the Museums of Strada Nuova. Curated by Andrea De Pascale.

A journey through porcelains, bronzes, lacquers, and sumptuous Chinese garments, through historical photographs and travel accounts of distant lands, through refined silk garments with colorful and shaded ikat threads, precious velvets and brocades often enriched with elaborate embroideries, headgear of a thousand colors and various shapes. Works that come from the areas crossed by the Silk Roads, a network of routes that over the centuries have connected the East and the West. From the most flourishing period, with the expansion of the Mongol empire between 1215 and 1368 ensuring great economic stability over a vast area, to the late 16th century, when land routes lose their importance in favor of new maritime trade routes, to the legacy of exchanges surviving until the 19th century, when caravans of merchants continue to move along ancient routes risking lives and goods through mountains and deserts.

The exhibition stems from the recent donation to the Civic Textile Collections of the Museums of Strada Nuova of numerous precious textile artifacts by Laura Barrai Cucchiaro, which have joined the section of "oriental" garments already present in the civic collections.

An opportunity to present the new acquisitions, to enhance unpublished artifacts, to offer insights into knowledge, techniques, and textile productions of ancient tradition, but also to evoke the centuries-old relationships of Genoa with the countries of Asia and the cultural interweavings that developed. In fact, from the 12th century, the Genoese create a vast commercial network with the Eastern Mediterranean and in the following two centuries build a profitable system of colonies, between the Bosporus and the Black Sea, which opens one of the northern routes of the Silk Roads towards China and India. Although from the 16th century commercial exchanges become more difficult due to political crises and conflicts, Genoa maintains uninterrupted relations with the great Ottoman Empire and oriental goods still reach the homes of the nobles, giving rise to local productions of "exotic" taste, with "Turkish", "Moorish", and "Chinoiserie" styles. In the 19th century, with the development of scientific and collecting interests, the ties between Genoa and the East take on new life: in this cultural climate, various collections are born, such as those of Enrico Alberto D'Albertis and Edoardo Chiossone, now part of the Genoese Civic Museums' heritage.