On the eve of Lent

The 17th and Early 18th Centuries Fabric Icons exhibition has opened at the Lviv Sheptytsky National Museum at 20 Svobody Avenue. The museum’s staff told The Day it was the first time that the institution hosted an all-embracing display of its holdings of the period’s sacred art works, painted in tempera or oil on linen or silk fabric. They include images that once decorated churches’ walls, depicting various subjects, in particular, large sheets of cloth with scenes of the Passion of Christ and the Last Judgment, altar images of the Virgin of the Incarnation, icons that belonged to the upper tiers of the iconostasis, and antypedias that once clothed the altar. The museum’s director Ihor Kozhan sees the restored 15th century shroud Lamentation of Christ as an especially interesting exhibit. It once belonged to the church of the Archangel Michael in the village of Zhyrivka, Pustomyty raion of Lviv oblast, is embroidered, uniquely in Ukrainian art, with silk and metallic threads, and is a rare example of the Medieval Ukrainian sacred embroidery.

The fabric icons exhibition at the National Museum in Lviv will run for a month.