In January 2016, at the annual meeting held by the Trustees of the A. G. Leventis Foundation and the members of the Honorary Committee of the A. G. Leventis Gallery, the Gallery’s Director, Loukia Loizou Hadjigavriel, the Curator of the Paris Collection, Myrto Hatzaki, and the collaborator in Paris, Sylvie Hartmann, presented an ambitious plan designed to bring a lost masterpiece to life. The Jacquelin de Montlucon Project was conceived as a research and exhibition programme that would bridge the gap between academic discovery and the desire to address a broad public. Intended to transform the recent findings of art-historical research into an engaging travelling exhibition, it promised to bring together scholars and museum experts, broaden the understanding of the oeuvre of an outstanding 15th-century artist and illuminator and revisit the panels of the lost altarpiece created for the Antonine monks of Chambery, currently housed among four European museums. The project set the pace for an extensive journey of research, restoration and planning, under the guidance of Professor Frederic Elsig of the University of Geneva and with the collaboration of the Musee des Beaux-Arts in Chambery, the Musee des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the A. G. Leventis Gallery in Nicosia. As the project progressed, the Centre de recherche et de restauration des musees de France [C2RMF] in Paris also came on board, undertaking the X-raying and digital scanning of the panels, as well as the analysis of colours and pigments used by the artist, adding valuable information about the creative process behind the panels. Text in English and French.
