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The Skevr reliquary
The Skevr Reliquary of 1293 from the collection of the State
Hermitage Museum is a wonderful monument of apllied art of Armenia. The
reluquary consists of three parts - a nut-wood container for keeping relics
and two folds to cover the container.The space around the cross with the
figure of crusified Christ in the central part of the reliquary is filled
with a tar mass in which the relics of saints mentioned in the inscriptions
are symmetrically arranged. The folds inside are decorated with scenes
of Announciation and figures of three saints and a king Getum II in the
medallions. The poem at the back of the central part tells that the reliquary
was executed in Skevr in 1293 by the commission of the Father Superior
of the Skevr cloister Constandin.
For more than 500 years from the moment it was made in 1293 till 1828
when it was found in Italy the reliquary was kept in obscurity. The first
mentioning of it in modern history dates back to 1828 when information
about this monument was published by Baron Papaziants, an interpretor
of the diplomatic representation of Sardinia in Constantinopol. At that
time the reliquary was kept in the Dominican monastery of Bosco-Marengo
not far from Alexandria in Piedmont. Later it appeared in the collection
of Basilevsky and in 1885 together with the whole collection was acquired
for the Emperor's Hermitage. In 1900 the reliquary was restored in the
Hermitage Museum.
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