Embroidery of Byzantine Tradition from Romania, Musée du Louvre, April 18–July 29, 2019

On the occasion of the symbolic loan by Romania of King Stephen the Great’s “Battle flag of Saint Georges,” this exhibition seeks to highlight the exceptional character of Romanian collections of embroidery of Byzantine tradition, jewel of both Romanian and universal heritage.

Around the masterpiece that Stephen the Great (1457–1504) offered to the Zograf Monastery on Mount Athos, which was solemnly handed over by France to the Romanian state in 1917, a number of extraordinary works will illustrate the remarkable development of embroidery of Byzantine tradition in Romania from the mid-15th to the mid-17th centuries. Inherited from Byzantium, the embroidered ornamentation of the “sacerdotal vestments” of bishops, priests and deacons, and that of the “liturgical vestments” intended for worship will be exhibited alongside an unrivalled collection of royal tombstone covers, upon which the hieratic character of Byzantine images was ultimately supplanted by the appeal of portraiture.