Moldavian Embroideries and Byzantine Artistic Traditions

Abstract

This study analyzes the religious embroideries produced in Moldavia in the 15^th century and especially after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. These church embroideries reveal iconographies, styles, and techniques that continue and readapt artistic and iconographic Byzantine traditions in a local context. The religious objects consist of liturgical vestments and veils, as well as tomb coverings that demonstrate through their iconography, style, and execution the sophistication of the medieval Moldavian workshops and aspects of the concerns of the royal patrons who commissioned the textiles. Through visual and technical analyses of 15^th-century Moldavian religious embroideries, this study reveals some of the ways in which Byzantine artistic and iconographic embroidery traditions were perpetuated and transformed in the Moldavian context especially in the second half of the 15^th century.

Keywords

Byzantine traditions, embroideries, iconography, liturgical veils, Moldavia, technique, tomb covers

Article from the journal
The Annals of Putna, XVI, 2020, 1