MORE THAN a hundred years after the World's Fair in Paris, the Museum of Eastern Slovakia (VSM) in Košice has brought one of its exhibits to France. Treasures of Eastern Slovakia, an exhibit of Gothic and Baroque art, is being shown in the castle in the town of Caen in Normandy.
"This is the VSM's biggest exhibit in its 135-year history," Zuzana Bobríková from the local Košice government, which runs the museum, told the TASR newswire.
Bobríková said the importance of the exhibit is comparable to that of foreign exhibits organised by the Slovak National Museum and the Slovak National Gallery. The insurance alone for the masterpieces stands at €626,000.
"The representatives from the French museum could hardly believe their eyes when they saw the VSM had such valuable pieces in its collection," Bobríková said.
The VSM is exhibiting a Gothic altar, Baroque statues from the Červený Kláštor monastery, a hutch from the 15th century, and the altar of St. Kozma and Damian from Šiba. Other masterworks come from Spišská Sobota, Kežmarok, Spišské Podhradie, Ľubica, Dúbrava and other towns and villages of eastern Slovakia.
The VSM prepared the exhibit for over two years.
"It is very important for us because we wanted to show that, even though Slovakia once lay behind the Iron Curtain, eastern Slovakia was always rich in history," museum director Róbert Pollák told TASR. "The exhibition demonstrates this very clearly. Our collections from the 14th to 18th centuries prove our important position in Europe. I am very glad that after 135 years, the VSM has managed to prepare such an honourable presentation of our culture in cooperation with the Košice local government, the French Alliance, and the Normandy Museum in Caen."
The exhibition will also help increase Košice's profile in the competition for the title of European Capital of Culture 2013. It will last until November 4 before moving on to Toulouse.
Prepared by Jana Liptáková