Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia 25 March 2018
louvre museum: update
Dominique Bénazeth Keywords: Louvre Museum; Bawit; Collectors and collecting; Coptic Art; Coptic Ceramics; Coptic Icons; Coptic language; Coptic Metalwork; Coptic Woodwork; Kellia; Manuscripts; Monasteries; Papyri; Textiles.
Egyptian Late Antique and Coptic artifacts are mainly kept in the Département des Antiquités égyptiennes (see http://www.louvre.fr).
Since Marie-Hélène Rutschowscaya’s 1991 entry for the Coptic Encyclopedia entitled louvre museum, the Louvre’s Coptic collection was enriched by a legacy endowment (300 objects from Raymond Weill), a gift (85 papyri from the daughter of the archaeologist jean clédat), and some acquisitions (a set of Late Antique metal objects from Lower nubia; a wooden door of the seventeenth century; two arcades of the nineteenth century with inlaid inscriptions: one in Coptic, the other in Arabic [Fig. 1, at the rear]; a painted ceramic; fragments of the so-called “shawl of Sabina”; and a large fragment of furnishing hanging decorated with sea creatures from Late Antiquity [Fig. 1]).
Fig. 1: The Coptic Gallery at the Louvre Museum (at the rear, the two arcades; in the first case, recent textile acquisition). Photo D. Bénazeth.
© Claremont Graduate University 1 Dominique Bénazeth, Louvre Museum: Update 25 March 2018 The Coptic exhibition moved to the Denon Wing as part of the important reorganization of the whole museum, called “Grand Louvre.” The new presentation was inaugurated in December 1997. A long gallery presents twenty-seven showcases and some sculptures fixed to the walls [Fig. 1–4].
Fig. 2: The Coptic Gallery. Photo D. Bénazeth.
Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia 2 Dominique Bénazeth, Louvre Museum: Update 25 March 2018 Fig. 3: The Coptic Gallery. Photo D. Bénazeth.
Fig. 4: Entrance of the Bawiṭ room from the Coptic Gallery. Photo D. Bénazeth.
Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia 3 Dominique Bénazeth, Louvre Museum: Update 25 March 2018 The items are displayed in a both chronological and thematic way, either focusing on one technique (ceramics, glass, textiles); or illustrating a theme (languages and writing [Fig. 2, first and last showcases and Fig. 3 in the rear], mythological repertoire [Fig. 1], Christian iconography [Fig. 3 in the middle], toilet, music, and so on) by means of different materials such as papyrus, parchment and paper, textile, wood, leather, bone and ivory, glass, or metal. The Coptic Gallery opens [Fig. 4] on a large room, traditionally named the “Bawit room,” where wooden and limestone sculptures are placed on a concrete structure [Figs. 5–9] simulating one of the churches excavated in this monastery (Coquin et al. 1991; see bawiṭ). A splendid model [Fig. 5] and a 3D digital reconstruction [Fig. 6, on the right] help the visitor to imagine how the church looked around the seventh century. Other sculptures and paintings from Bawiṭ, and four paintings from kellia, are shown around the room [Figs. 5 and 10].
Fig. 5: Bawiṭ room with the church and the model. Photo D. Bénazeth.
Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia 4 Dominique Bénazeth, Louvre Museum: Update 25 March 2018 Fig. 6: Bawiṭ room, inside the church: the southern wall. Photo D. Bénazeth.
Fig. 7: Bawiṭ room, inside the church: the western wall and the columns. Photo D. Bénazeth. Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia 5 Dominique Bénazeth, Louvre Museum: Update 25 March 2018 Fig. 8: Bawiṭ room, inside the church, looking toward the southeast. Photo D.
Bénazeth.
Fig. 9: Bawiṭ room, inside the church: the eastern wall and the icon. Photo D. Bénazeth.
Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia 6 Dominique Bénazeth, Louvre Museum: Update 25 March 2018 Large showcases contain funerary stelae [Fig. 10] and textiles [Fig. 11]. Separate sheets written in English, German, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese give explanations to visitors [Fig. 5 (on a rack to the right of the showcase and another rack to the left); and Fig. 10 (on a rack to the right of the showcase)].
Fig. 10: Bawiṭ room: outside the church, sculptures and stelae. Photo D. Bénazeth.
Fig. 11: Bawiṭ room: textiles.
Photo D. Bénazeth.
Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia 7 Dominique Bénazeth, Louvre Museum: Update 25 March 2018 This important reorganization of the Coptic exhibition boosted conservation work on the Louvre’s Coptic collection, and since that time, annual conservation programs continue to create better conditions for the most fragile artifacts. Textiles and manuscripts are regularly rotated to avoid any of the artifacts being exposed to too much light, which can cause irreversible damage.
New rooms opened in September 2012, making the Coptic Gallery a link between the section of the Louvre Museum devoted to the Oriental provinces of the Roman Empire (where Egypt had an important role) and the department of Islamic art. The first section houses the “Antinoé Veil” and some Egyptian textiles in two showcases which are shared with artifacts from the Oriental and Greco-Roman departments, illustrating house decoration and everyday life costume. At this time, the Coptic Gallery also began to display labels in English and Spanish, as part of the beginning of a huge translation project undertaken for the entire museum.
In December 2012, Louvre-Lens opened to the public (see http://louvrelens.fr/). This new museum is a part of the Louvre presented in Lens, a town in the north of France. Works of art from the Louvre’s eight departments are presented along a chronological path at Louvre-Lens, and include three Coptic sculptures. In 2016, fourteen textiles were added to Louvre-Lens to be presented alternatively in its gallery and in the storeroom, both of which are open to public visitation.
The Coptic section of the Louvre participates in temporary exhibitions in France and abroad (Bénazeth 2015: 19, n. 54). Less visible museum work continues to improve conditions in the Louvre’s storeroom and checking and photography enrich the museum’s database (see https://collections.louvre.fr/). Many research projects continue to focus on the Louvre’s Coptic collections, with the aim of publication (see Bibliography). For example, about sixty Coptic papyri acquired in the nineteenth century form an important part of the correspondence of saint pisentius, Bishop of qift (Coptos); the manuscript is ready to print. Catalogues of Coptic sculpture and of bone and ivory carvings will follow. Hundreds of textiles and leather items have been radiocarbon dated (irpa, Brussels). With such analysis performed in other collections, these will help to reconsider the question of Coptic textiles chronology. By this method, some of the masterpieces cited in Rutschowscaya 1991 are now differently dated (calibrated age with 95.4% probability): 390– 540 AD for the Antinoé Veil; 340–440 AD for the shawl of Sabina; 250–420 AD for the tapestry with the “Triumph of the Cross” (see cross, triumph of the: update). As to the date of the painting representing Christ and Mena, the abbot of Bawiṭ (see menas), it has been established, on the basis of papyri, to the eighth century [Fig. 9].
Excavation archives reveal the exact provenance of this famous icon: it was found in 1902 in the north church of the monastery, now known as the church of the Archangel Michael.
Since 2003, the Louvre has conducted new excavations in Bawiṭ with the Institute français d’archéologie orientale in Cairo (ifao). This is another way of understanding the context of the collection divided in 1902 between the Cairo and Paris museums.
Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia 8 Dominique Bénazeth, Louvre Museum: Update 25 March 2018