The Louvre Museum in the heart of Paris has announced its temporary custody of 16 medieval antiquities that were secretly evacuated from Ukraine during the ongoing Russian invasion. The works come from the Khanenko Museum, which suffered damage from a Russian missile strike last octoberencouraging the strengthening of security measures to protect its cultural property from Russian attacks as well as looting and illegal trade. The French museum will exhibit five sacred icons from the Byzantine era that were transferred from kyiv until November 6.
The Louvre exhibition, entitled At the origins of the sacred image. Icons from the Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko National Museum of Arts in Kyivincludes four 6th and 7th century encaustic paintings on wood panel of holy icons from Saint Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai, Egypt, and a 13th or 14th century Constantinopolitan micromosaic of Saint Nicholas surrounded by an intricate gold wire frame. The works on display illustrate the origins of the religious foundation of the Byzantine civilization and “the artistic expression of Christianity in the East”, according to the text of the exhibition.
A Louvre spokesperson confirmed with Hyperallergic that nine of the other eleven transferred works, all of which are sacred paintings on wood, are currently in the Louvre Conservation Center in the north French town of Liévin, and the other two are stored awaiting scientific analysis. After the exhibition ends in November, the Louvre will continue its research and analysis of the encaustic paintings and micromosaics to better understand the methods and materials behind each work.
“They will of course return to the Khanenko Museum at the end of the war,” the Louvre spokesman said of the transferred objects. “No other transfers are planned at this time.”
The Khanenko Museum did not immediately respond to Hyperallergic investigation into the disposal of works of art and antiquities to other museums.
On 250 Ukrainian cultural sites were damaged since the start of the war in February 2022, according to UNESCO estimates; The Ukrainian government has reported more than 500 incidents of damaged and destroyed objects of cultural value. At the start of the war, a a large fire destroyed the local history museum in Ivankiv in Kyiv, claiming 25 revered works by the late Ukrainian folk painter Maria Prymachenko. Last week, the collapse of a large dam in southern Ukraine overwhelmed the house-museum of the late artist Polina Raiko in flood waters, potentially destroying its vivid frescoes and other works of art.
