Altar sculptures, textiles 17th-19th centuries to go on display in Minsk

      The exhibition “Altar Sculptures and Textiles of Belarus from the 17th to 19th centuries” from the stocks of the National Art Museum of Belarus will open in Minsk.
The public will see about 30 pieces of religious wood sculptures of the Baroque era when this type of art was flourishing in Belarusian churches. The collection of sculptures and items of decorative art in Western Belarus was started before World War II by the Vilno Belarusian Museum of Ivan Lutskevich. However, the main part of the collection of carved sculptures from the 17th-19th centuries in the National Art Museum of Belarus, which now has more than 500 samples, was collected by scientific expeditions of the museum in 1960-1980s who went around closed temples taking out the sculptures and thus saving them from imminent destruction. Works have been restored and studied by museum experts. Some of them were exhibited in Minsk and Moscow. Some part will be displayed for the first time.
      The exhibition will also showcase the works of artisans from the second half of the 18th and early 19th centuries in which the lack of skills is compensated for by originality of ingenuous images. The exhibition will also feature samples of weaving-liturgical vestments, including with the fragments of the Slutsk belt.