MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th July, 2023) The Trinity Icon, created by medieval Russian painter Andrei Rublev, cannot be placed in the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius unless the necessary conditions for its storage and exhibition are met, given its artistic and spiritual value, Russia's Tretyakov Gallery Director Elena Pronicheva told Sputnik.
"Not only the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, but also the Tretyakov Gallery are making a commitment, given the enormous artistic and spiritual value of Andrei Rublev's creation. And there is no such question whether they will be able to. Until the necessary conditions of storage, exhibition and security are created for the Trinity icon, it will be impossible to place it in the cathedral," Pronicheva said.
At the same time, she added that the conditions for the transfer of the icon to the Lavra, or monastery, had been worked through by a team of restorers and curators of the Tretyakov Gallery.
"For the period of its permanent stay on the territory of the Lavra, the Trinity Icon will be stored only in the climatic showcase, where air temperature should be maintained at 19 degrees (Celsius, 66 degrees Fahrenheit), with relative humidity ranging from 50% to 55%. And the room where the showcase will be located will be equipped with all necessary security systems," Pronicheva said.
She also told Sputnik that the terms of restoration of the icon would be determined after studying its condition.
"Until we get the full results of the study of the Trinity Icon after its stay in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, it is difficult to say how long it will take and what specialists will be part of the team to work with this unique monument of Old Russian art," Pronicheva said.
On Wednesday, the icon was transferred to the Grabar Art Conservation Center to undergo restoration. The head of the scientific and methodological and exhibition activity department, Elena Prokhanova, said that the center had organized the same storage conditions than those in which the relic stayed in the Tretyakov Gallery.
In May, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered for the icon to be handed over to the Russian Orthodox Church, which owned the painting before the Russian Revolution. Rublev created the "Holy Trinity" for the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, in the town of Sergiyev Posad near Moscow, where it stayed until the 1920s.
