The Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania opens the international exhibition entitled “Lviv Welcomes Vilnius. Masterpieces of European Painting from the Borys Voznytsky Lviv National Art Gallery”.
The pieces were brought to Vilnius both as a greeting on the city’s 700th anniversary and to keep them safer while Ukraine is at war, says the gallery’s director.
“There is a total war going on, the Russians are destroying everything – they are destroying memory, culture, museums, our cultural heritage is in danger. So we found a way to both protect our heritage and create an exhibition,” says Taras Vozniak, head of the Lviv National Art Gallery. “When a rocket hits, it leaves a hole six metres deep and 11 metres wide, is it possible to find a cellar of that size to protect the treasures?”
The National Art Gallery of Lviv is one of the largest and richest museums in Ukraine with a collection that includes masterpieces of European and Ukrainian art. It consists of more than 64,000 pieces dating from Antiquity to the present day.
The exhibition at the Palace of the Grand Dukes in Vilnius features 33 paintings spanning from the 15th to the 20th century. Among them are works by Sebastian Ricci, Jan Matejko, Henryk Siemiradzki, and Lucas Cranach the Elder, as well as works from the workshops of Leonardo da Vinci, Peter Paul Rubens, and Jan Brueghel the Elder.
The pieces for the exhibition were selected so that they represent the same masters whose artworks were held in collections of Lithuanian rulers and noble families and inspired local artists.
This exhibition gives a glimpse into Lithuania’s lost historical collections that also included works by a number of the artists featured in it.
The exhibition will be open at the Palace of the Grand Dukes in Vilnius until the end of May.
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