The 'Silver Treasury' exhibition at the Pereslavl Museum-Reserve

Russian decorative and applied arts are one of the most valuable sections of the museum collection. The core of the collection consists of examples of liturgical and ornamental embroidery and of jewelry art of the 16th–19th centuries from the sacristies of destroyed Pereslavl churches and monasteries.\r\n\r\nThese highly artistic items were miraculously rescued and preserved by museum staff in the 1920s–1930s. The exhibition was opened in the premises of the All Saints Church in 1989; a re-exposition was carried out in 2010. The exhibition includes several dozen of the collection's most interesting exhibits — royal and boyar donations, works by Moscow silversmiths and goldsmiths, gold-embroidered pieces from the famous 'svetlitsy' of the 16th–17th centuries, and objects of Orthodox worship of the 18th–19th centuries produced by well-known jewelry firms. Among them are items associated with the names of Boris Godunov, Peter I, Tsarina Natalia Alexeyevna, the boyars Roman Khvostov and Ivan Baryatinsky, and other prominent figures of the Russian Church. The works presented here are notable for their splendor and magnificence, the variety of techniques employed, and the high degree of craftsmanship. Despite its comparatively small size, the exhibition makes it possible to trace the history of the development of Russian decorative art from the time of Ivan the Terrible to the era of the collapse of old Russia.