Louvre to open Byzantine and Eastern Christian Art department in 2027

Greece will play a central role in the new Byzantine and Eastern Christian Art department in the Louvre in Paris, its director has said.

Laurence des Cars arrived in Athens on Thursday to present the new department, which will be inaugurated in 2027.

At an informal meeting at the French ambassador’s residence, des Cars said the new department, which will be the museum’s ninth, will put on display nearly 20,000 objects of Byzantine art.

She added that 9 million tourists visit the Louvre annually, making it by far the most visited museum globally. The new exhibition will acquaint visitors with the complexity of Byzantine civilization.

The international tender for the museum’s new department has been concluded. As des Cars underlined, the department will open new fields of collaboration with Greece.

The Department of Byzantine and Eastern Christian Art will be curated by Maximilien Durand, who said the department’s permanent exhibition will include objects from the 3rd century AD to 1923 (when the Lausanne Treaty was signed), and cover areas from Ethiopia to Russia, the Caucasus to Mesopotamia, and the Balkans to the Middle East, with Greece playing a key role in this large geographical area.

Besides the chronological and geographical aspects, the exhibition will also explore the role of icons in Eastern Christianity, how the role developed, and how it defined the cultures of the region.

Source: ekathimerini.com