A collection of Romanian Byzantine embroidery dating from the 15th to the 17th Century will be exhibited for the first time ever at the Louvre Museum in Paris from April 17.
The Louvre Museum in Paris will host a Romanian art exhibition that brings together 27 pieces of Byzantine embroidery and some religious tapestries from the mid-15th to the mid-17th Century, it was announced on Tuesday.
The pieces come from the Romanian National Art Museum and the History Museum in Bucharest, as well as several historic monasteries in eastern Romania, said a press release from the Romanian National Art Museum.
The exhibit is part of the Romania-France Cultural Season, a joint programme of the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its French counterpart.
The main piece is a war flag from the region of Moldova portraying Saint George, which was embroidered in 1504.
The piece was offered as a gift by Stephen II of Moldova, also known as Stephen the Great, who was the Prince of Moldova during 1457-1504, to a monastery on Mount Athos.
The flag was recovered during World War I by the French Army and given back to Romania in a ceremony held at Sorbonne University in 1917.
The exhibition also features 26 embroidered orthodox liturgic veils, Byzantine decorative tapestry, pieces of clothing and embroidered portraits that used to cover the graves of kings and high-ranking nobility.
All the pieces were made in Walachia and Moldova between 1435 and the end of the 17th Century.
Byzantine embroidery is a very laborious technique that uses gold and silver thread, pearls and gemstones as well as silk and velvet. Most pieces were used by high-level nobility, princes and senior Orthodox clerics as ceremonial decoration or funerary attire.
Some of the pieces that are to be exhibited at the Louvre haven’t been shown abroad since 1927.
The exhibition will open on April 17 and will run until July 29.
Tr by Balkan Insight
Photography courtesy of Doxologia
