October 25 through April 27, 2003
At The Arthur M. Sackler Museum (more about the Sackler)

The Virgin of Vladimir with 12 Scenes from the Legend of the Miracles of the Icon of the Virgin of Vladimir, Russian, 1750-1760. Tempera on panel with silver, 71.76 x 55.25 x 3.81 cm. Courtesy of the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Bequest of Philip M. Lydig, 1930.43

This exhibition explores, for the first time, the world of Byzantine women: how they adorned their bodies, occupied their days, decorated their homes, and soothed their fears. Past exhibitions of Byzantine art have focused on the spirituality or imperial splendor of the Byzantine world including women only as empresses and saints. This exhibition will initiate a fresh discourse on women in Byzantium by displaying a variety of works of art and other objects and images related to them and their everyday lives.

The female figure as represented through the classical tradition continued to be popular until about the middle Byzantine period (10th-11th century), and is reflected through objects such as the elaborate bronze lamp stand from the Nelson Atkins Museum, decorated with Aphrodite and frolicking Nereids and hippocamps. Objects and artifacts like the "wandering womb" amulets and a papyrus with a prayer for pregnancy bear testament to women's other concerns and desires. Women's activities in religious institutions as both patrons and participants are represented through devotional objects such as icons and crosses. Colorful textile fragments not only evoke the interior space inhabited by the women of Byzantium but also represent weaving, one of the more common activities that occupied their days.

Organized by Ioli Kalavrezou, Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Byzantine Art in the Department of History of Art and Architecture, this exhibition includes almost 200 objects from the collections of the Arthur M. Sackler Museum and borrowed from 13 major institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Walters Art Museum, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Morgan Library, and the Royal Ontario Museum. The objects date from the fourth through the fifteenth century-the entire span of the Byzantine Empire-and represent a full range of media and subject matter. They include luxury objects such as ivories, silver vessels, and precious jewelry; utilitarian objects such as toiletries, textiles, and weaving tools; official objects such as coins and seals; and ritual objects such as icons and amulets.

Funded by The Florence Gould Foundation, Anonymous, The J.F. Costopoulos Foundation, The Parthenon Group, The Louise E. Bettens Fund, José Soriano, The Carnegie Corporation of New York Fund, Anonymous, The Gurel Student Exhibition Fund, Jessie Lie Farber, The Goldman Sachs Foundation, The Diane Heath Beever Fund.

Press Release
See Exhibition Catalogue