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Spanish Style. Glass and Art Textiles of the 16th and 19th Centuries in the Hermitage Collection

Exhibition February 23 − September 18, 2022
The State Hermitage presents an exhibition in the halls of the Winter Palace "Spanish Style. Glass and Art Textiles of the 16th and 19th Centuries in the Hermitage Collection".

The exposition brought together glassware and samples of fabrics, embroidery and lace created by Spanish masters in the 16th and early 19th centuries. They look the complete opposite of each other: glass objects are three-dimensional, transparent and often monochrome; embroidery is performed on the plane of the canvas with threads of bright, saturated colors. However, both the fragile products of glassblowers and ornate, patterned fabrics created by a skilled weaver or a skilled embroiderer's needle, unite a bright, distinctive character of applied art in Spain.

"The distinctiveness and artistic superiority of Spain is expressed in the applied arts as vividly as in painting. Competition with the rest of Europe, combined with the strength of Muslim aesthetic traditions, gives birth to textiles and lace of amazing beauty, magical Catalan glass that reacts to poisons, and Andalusian vessels with twisted threads. The Hermitage collection turns out to be sufficient to give a confident image of what the creators of the exhibition called the Spanish Style," noted Mikhail Piotrovsky, General Director of the State Hermitage Museum.

Prepared on the materials of the official site of the museum State Hermitage Museum.