The École Biblique et Archéologique Française de Jérusalem was delighted to welcome Maximilien Durand, Director of the new Department of Byzantine and Oriental Christian Arts, and his collaborators.
This was a great opportunity to discuss archaeology and museography with the school’s academic team, as well as less formal meetings with Ébaf students. This new department is sure to arouse curiosity! An eighth department at the Louvre is a first. A new 3,000 m2 department showcasing works from the “arts of Byzantium and Christianity in the East”…
This initiative, although recent in its current form, has its roots in 1938, when part of the museum’s Byzantine collections were brought together in one place. It took several attempts to bring this ambitious project to fruition. Finally, on October 04 2022, the decree creating the département des Arts de Byzance et des Chrétientés en Orient (ABCO) appeared in the Journal Officiel. Maximilien Durand took charge of the prefiguration and, with his team, embarked on the task of assembling the collections, seeking patronage, setting up a museography, drafting a scientific and cultural program…
ringing together works hitherto dispersed in other departments of the Louvre, this new project aims to offer visitors an exploration of the evolution of the image over time up to the art of the icon, emblematic of Eastern art and without doubt its most complete expression.Organized around three main themes: archaeology, art objects and painting, the tour aims to present civilizations in parallel, highlighting their distinctive features and showing how, from the 3rd century onwards in Eastern Christianity, they came to represent the “real presence”.
Maximilien Durand (c) 2022 musée du Louvre_Guillaume Thomas.jpg