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View the masterpieces of this collection Panoramic view of Hall 2 of the Diamond Rooms The culture of Byzantium and, following its lead, Early Russia and mediaeval Europe, was founded upon Christianity. The creations of 6th-century Byzantine jewellers are represented by some famous finds from the town of Mersin on the Cilician plain and elsewhere in Asia Minor. Necklaces with crosses, openwork medallions, chased pendants and insets of semi-precious stones show the variety of artistic approaches and techniques that the craftsmen of Constantinople had mastered to perfection. Pieces of jewellery were often donated for the decoration of miracle-working icons. This tradition was handed on from Byzantium to Russia, where monasteries had storerooms for such precious gifts: kolts, chains, pearl necklaces, icons carved in wood and stone, crosses and panagias (pectoral icons in the form of medallions depicting the Virgin). Gold kolts - an elegant form of jewellery worn by women on the temples - were a favourite adornment for icons. They were decorated using cloisonné enamel (a technique lost during the 13th-century Tatar-Mongol invasion) and are among the most interesting relics of Early Russian art from the 12th century. The basis for the Hermitage’s stocks of Western European applied art of the 6th to16th century was provided by the collection of Alexander Bazilewsky, a Russian who lived in Paris and devoted himself to the study of the era in which Christian art formed. A magnificent example of the jeweller’s art in the High Gothic period is the Cross of St Trudpert, known as the Freiburg Cross. It was created in the late 13th century as a receptacle for particles of the True Cross brought from Palestine by German Crusaders. |
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