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The thematic flow of the exhibition is interrupted by two
rooms, where two great private collections are
displayed, those of Dori Papastratou and Dimitrios
Ekonomopoulos respectively, which have been donated to the museum. They function as independent entities, while supplementing the museum's main thematic display, and they also allow visitors to perceive, through the choice of archaeological material, the collectors' sources, motives, and orientations when putting their collections together.
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Room 8: The Dori Papastratou Collection
The Orthodox religious engravings that the Dori Papastratou Collection consists of represent a genre of western provenance that was adopted by the Orthodox Church
c. the mid-17th century. Dori Papastratou put her collection together knowledgeably, sensitively, and perceptively, accomplishing the unique achievement of bringing valuable artistic material that was then of marginal interest to the attention of specialists and the general public alike.
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Her rich and remarkably diverse collection comprises 198 engravings of the 18th and 19th centuries and eight wood- and copperplates, which were donated to the Museum of Byzantine Culture by her daughters, Marina and Daphne Iliadi, in 1993.
The display consists of one engraved copperplate and 29 works from all the main centres where Greek religious engravings were printed: Lviv in the Ukraine, Vienna, Venice, Constantinople, and Mount Athos. Some of them are
extremely valuable as the only surviving copies of their subject.
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Dionysiou Monastery, Vienna 1780 |
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The engravings, which depicted panoramic views of monasteries with many vivid peripheral details, were the monasteries' chief means of communicating with the outside world. They were distributed to the faithful as
eulogia, 'blessing', encouraging them to give the monasteries financial support by making a pilgrimage.
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St John Klimax, Lviv 1700 |
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The Orthodox engravings were initially printed in European cities with strong Greek communities, which had the necessary modern technology. Engraving workshops were later set up on Mount Athos and met the needs of the entire Orthodox world.
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