After the exhibition in Lisbon, these works will go to the United States, to New York City, then to other European countries still to be defined, before their definitive return to Jerusalem, where they can be admired at the Terra Sancta Museum, in the future historical section of the Custody’s museum.
Crating the works is a delicate operation; objects are as fragile as they are precious. These works of art, selected after careful and rigorous work by the team of Professor António Filipe Pimentel, director of the Gulbenkian Museum and organizer of the exhibition, are unique pieces. They were offered by the European Royal Houses of Devotion to the Holy Places and to support the Custody of the Holy Land.
The generosity of the Courts of Europe has extended from material and financial resources – to support churches and local communities with gold coins, wax, etc. – to artistic works of precious metals, textiles and furniture, for use during worship or for decorating religious spaces.
Among these works of art are liturgical objects in solid silver, including the church lamp sent to Jerusalem by the King of Portugal, João V, the baldachin housing a monstrance or a crucifix, offered by Carlo VII, King of Naples, also a bas-relief of the Resurrection, made in Naples in 1736, and the basin of Peter II of Bragance, King of Portugal, dating from 1675, used by the Custody for washing the feet of pilgrims.
Responsible for the creation of the historical section of the Terra Sancta Museum, Brother Stéphane Milovitch, director of the Custody’s Office of Cultural Property, said: “We are very pleased to participate in exhibitions where the masterpieces of our treasure can be seen outside of Jerusalem, before being permanently displayed in the new historical section of the Terra Sancta Museum.”
The Gulbenkian Foundation is a great help: “We are taking over the restoration of some of the works, as part of a skills-based patronage with the Custody,” adds Rui Filipe Teixeira Xavier, Chief Curator of the Portuguese Museum. Calouste Gulbenkian’s connection to the Holy Land is also evoked, with the presentation of an illuminated Armenian manuscript from the 15th century, which the collector offered to the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem.
The exhibition of the Gulbenkian Foundation is directly inspired by that organized in 2013 in Versailles on the Treasury of the Holy Sepulcher, by Bernard Degout and Jacques Charles-Gaffiot. That event attracted a record number of visitors.
The presence of the Franciscans in the Holy Land began at the beginning of the 13th century with the pilgrimage of St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226). During the wars and crusades, the saint sought a path to peace by meeting the sultan of Egypt. By a papal bull of 1342, Clement VI legally recognized the Custody of the Holy Land. Since that time, the “brothers of the cord” have never ceased to assist the pilgrims and to guard the Holy Places.
Thus was born the Terra Sancta Museum project, which is designed to enhance in the heart of the old city of Jerusalem the Christian spiritual, archaeological, and artistic heritage, treasured by the Franciscans over the last eight centuries.
The Terra Sancta Museum will have three sections: multimedia, archaeological, and historical. Two Franciscan buildings of the Custody of the Holy Land – the Monastery of the Flagellation and the Convent of Holy Savior – were chosen to host these sections. Currently, only the multimedia section and the second part of the archaeological section are open to the public. The opening of the archaeological section as well as the historical section (under construction) is planned for 2025.
In May 2023, the Custody of the Holy Land sent 75 works of art from the Treasury of the Holy Sepulcher to the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon, to be presented at the exhibition: “The Treasury of Kings, Masterpieces of the Museum of the Holy Land,” November 10, 2023 to February 26, 2024.