Nearly 900 years ago around the middle of the 12th century, the first walls were built for a compound that has survived nearly a millennium. About 200 years after these early walls appeared, the first stone bell tower was built on the site. There is an amazing amount of history at this location, including the construction of many cathedrals (all Russian Tsars were crowned in the 15th century Cathedral of the Assumption), the occupation and attempted destruction by Napoleon in 1812, and of course, the housing of the offices of the various governments in charge of the general and sometimes much wider area.
But our interests focus beginning in the early 1500’s when the Ivan the Great Bell Tower was built. The bell tower was later raised, around 1600, to its current height of 266 feet, and next to it sits the giant (200 ton) Tsar Bell, said to be the largest bell in the world. The tower also is supposed to mark the geographic center of Moscow and it contains over 20 bells. Until the mid 1800’s brought the construction of the Christ the Savior Cathedral, which was demolished by Stalin in 1931 and then re-built in the 1990’s (see the recent last photo below), no building in Moscow was taller than the Great Bell Tower, and until around 1917, no other building in Moscow was allowed to be built higher than the Great Bell Tower.
A few decades after the Great Bell Tower was built, during the period of roughly 1530 to 1550, a church was built next to it. 150 years after that, the church was converted into an Assumption Belfry, and later the first floor of that Belfry was transformed into a museum exhibition hall.
And it is there, where 200 years ago one Frenchman wreaked havoc not just on the citizens of Moscow, but on this site generally, including the burning of part of the Ivan the Great Bell Tower, that another Frenchman will be honored. For in September, in the church turned Belfry turned exhibition hall in the shadow of the Ivan the Great Bell Tower, the Kremlin presents an exhibition devoted solely to the works of another historical Great; the Great Rene Lalique!
The exhibition: Rene Lalique and His Art, will commence September 21, 2010, and run until January 9th, 2011. Lenders to this exhibition include the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon Portugal; the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris France; the Lalique Museum in Hakone Japan; and the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art in the United States.
Yelena Gagarina, in charge of Kremlin museums, related at a press conference: In the fall, the Kremlin will host a collection of art nouveau jewelry designed by Rene Lalique. It’s going to be a very beautiful exhibition but also a complicated one. We are bringing to Moscow many great and unique items including from Portugal, Paris, Japan, and New York. I hope visitors will appreciate Lalique’s sketches and his fantastic jewelry skills. His work does not boast a large amount of valuable gem stones or rich materials but they are very interesting in terms of design.
All these contributing museums, and near 60 others that have Rene Lalique works in their collections, are listed on the Lalique Museum page at RLalique.com, where you can access links to their websites. And in the jewelry section of the biography of Rene Lalique, you can access all the resources at RLalique.com related to Lalique Jewelry. And finally, to discover all Rene Lalique exhibition information at RLalique.com, both current and historical, check out the Lalique Exhibition section of the Lalique bio.
We will bring you more news and details about this great upcoming exhibition when it becomes available.
Photos: The first photo above is an aerial view of the Kremlin complex, where on the right side of the photo you can see the Assumption Belfry next to the Ivan the Great Bell Tower. The second photo shows the Ivan the Great Bell Tower in the foreground, and behind and to the left the Assumption Belfry. Both photos are courtesy of the Kremlin and we appreciate their permission to use them!
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