Last week to visit! Purple skies. Liturgical embroideries featuring the Deposition

Twenty medieval icons, embroideries and silverware summon up the world of medieval religious practices. To worshippers, the form and decoration of such objects came to life during Easter rites as function and meaning supported the memory of Christ’s Passions, anchoring individual experiences.

Visitors can enjoy the objects’ intrinsic beauty as well as their elaborate and often very detailed narrative account of the Passions. A documentary film and ample texts complement the exhibition, supplying information on the museum’s entire collection of liturgical veils featuring Christ’s Deposition in its Orthodox interpretation. These sumptuous embroideries are illustrative of various schools which developed throughout the Byzantine and post-Byzantine Christian world and constitute real treasures in their own right.

The Black Sun (1968), a visual essay by film director Slavomir Popovici, can be watched in the exhibition space. It invites visitors to revel not only in the embroideries’ exquisite artistic quality but also in their deep engagement with fundamental issues of life and death.

The Romanian Medieval Art Gallery houses the only permanent display in the country that tells a comprehensive story of Romanian art from the 9th to the 19th century.

Open 12 April to 29 October 2017
Romanian Medieval Art Gallery, Room 4
Free with gallery ticket
Visiting hours: Wednesday to Sunday, 10.00 -18.00 hrs (October-April)
Wednesday to Sunday, 11.00 – 19.00 hrs (May-September)