Moscow region, Sergiev Posad, Lavra, Academy

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The MThA Christian Art Museum summed up the year

On December 7, 2022, the Christian Art Museum «Church-Archaeological Cabinet” at the Moscow Theological Academy presented an educational platform "The Heart of Russian Culture". Anton Novikov, a director of the Museum, said a welcoming speech noting that the current educational project became more ambitious than it had been originally planned.   

Ekaterina Kibalchich, Head of the exhibition and educational department at the Museum, gave a presentation «From the classroom to the Christian Art Museum» and spoke about some main achievements of 2022.

Our educational course on Christian art is based on the museum collection. This work led to many other things. The «Church-Archaeological Cabinet» has a corporate identity, logo and style, which distinguishes it from other church collections. Since 2022 we have been called the Christian Art Museum. And of course, the biggest event is a release of a . digital catalog».

A new website christianmuseum.ru. shows more than 1,000 exhibits. The discovery of the year was a XIV century icon of the Mother of God "Mammary", which was recognized as the oldest icon of the museum.

Previously, its origin was a mystery for a long time and it was dated to the XV century. Before the publication, the item was investigated by Irina Oretskaya, an expert specialized on the history of Byzantine art, with the help of art historians from Italy and Switzerland. Now Get to know the masterpiece and learn its history section is a part of the Christian art course. The icon is published for the first time.

After an official part of the presentation, the guests were invited to attend a guided tour Museum in 20 minutes. There is a similar section on the website of the educational platform. The curator of the exposition Ekaterina Puganova offered to discuss some masterpieces of the collection.

The curator of the exposition Ekaterina Puganova offered to discuss some masterpieces of the collection.

One of them was a XVI century tablet icon that inspired designers to create a museum's corporate style.

At the end of the meeting, Oksana Ivanovna Zaritskaya, a curator of graphic funds, a well-known art critic and graphic expert, showed two sketches of Mikhail Nesterov's painting "Passion Week" (one of them had never been exhibited before). Thanks to the new digital catalog, art lovers can see drawings by Viktor Vasnetsov, Mikhail Nesterov, Claudius Lebedev and other works stored in the museum funds.

The educational project "The Heart of Russian Culture" was implemented with the support of the Presidential Fund for Cultural Initiatives.

MThA Press Office