After piloting their exfiltration, the Louvre welcomes and exhibits 16 works of art from Kyiv – Liberation

2023-06-07 17:42:00

War between Ukraine and Russiadossier

In order to protect them from the war, and after managing their evacuation, the Parisian museum houses sixteen works of art, including precious Byzantine icons from Kyiv.

For a museum, parting with works is an upheaval. But sometimes caution demands it. This is the choice made by the Khanenko Museum – National Museum of Arts in Kyiv – last autumn when it decided to exfiltrate sixteen of its most fragile works to the Louvre to protect them from bombing. “From the start of the war, like other major museum institutions, our concern has been to see how to support our Ukrainian colleagues,” delivers the president of the Louvre Laurence des Cars to AFP, thus confirming information from Le Monde. A support which is therefore reflected in the reception of sixteen paintings from the Khanenko museum, the largest in Kyiv, whose evacuation the Louvre has piloted in order to put them in a safe place. They will be exhibited to the Parisian public from June 14 until November 6.

It all started at the beginning of October, when a rocket fell near the Khanenko Museum and blew out the windows of the establishment. Following the incident, with the exception of large paintings, the artworks are mostly “moved to the reserves, where they are subject to temperature variations and power cuts, which worry our counterparts”, says Laurence des Cars. In the process, at the end of October, she received a Ukrainian delegation of museum representatives, including the director of the museum, Khanenko, when Unesco identifies 240 sites damaged by war. It is at this moment that the forces present decide on the rescue.

Works under military escort

“It’s a small thing in an ocean of sadness and desolation but it’s quite a symbol”confesses the president of the Louvre, “aware of the importance of saving this thousand-year-old heritage at the heart of Europe and of the need to pass it on”. Eleven of these works, “among the most emblematic and fragile” of the Ukrainian museum, selected for scientific collaboration on the restoration of works at the Louvre, will be housed in the reserves, specifies the Parisian museum.

The operation to rescue the 16 selected works, financially supported by the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Zones, was officially recorded during a visit to Ukraine by the Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul Malak, in February and the works were escorted militarily via Poland and Germany at the beginning of May. Among the works to be exhibited are five valuable Byzantine icons. Their display at the Louvre will prefigure the opening in 2027 of a new department of Byzantine Arts and Christianity in the East.