On 9 October 2024, the exhibition The monstrance by Hans Ryssenberg. Marking the 550th anniversary of its creation begins its run in the Apollo Hall of the Winter Palace.

Its centrepiece, and sole exhibit, is a unique work of mediaeval applied art from the collection of the State Hermitage – the celebrated monstrance by Hans Ryssenberg created in the year 1474.

The history of this masterpiece can be traced back to the moment when it was commissioned. The monstrance was signed and dated by the silversmith; there are documents providing details about its creation and its subsequent fate, which is something extremely rare for a work of art from the Middle Ages.

In Catholic worship, a monstrance (from the Latin monstrare – “to show”) is a liturgical vessel used for the storage and display of the consecrated host. Such receptacles came into widespread use after 1264, the date of the institution of the Feast of Corpus Christi (the Body of Christ) during which the host became the focal point of religious processions.

The monstrance being exhibited was created for the Nigiluste Church (St Nicholas’s) in Reval, present-day Tallinn. In 1524 it was almost destroyed at the hands of supporters of the Reformation, and by resolution of the municipal council was transferred to the keeping of the new clergy as a material treasure now belonging to the city. In this status it remained in the sacristy until the Northern War in the early 18th century, when Russian forces laid siege to Reval. After the city’s capitulation, the silver monstrance was presented as a gift to the new Governor General of Estland, Alexander Menshikov.

In the history of the jeweller’s craft in the late Gothic era, this is an outstanding piece of work executed to a standard far exceeding the majority of items of church plate. The depictions engraved on its foot can stand comparison with the works produced by major artists of the day – the Golden Age of the German print.

In 2002, the Reval monstrance was transferred from the permanent display in the Western (Romanov) Gallery of the Small Hermitage to the re-opening Diamond Rooms and since then it has only rarely left this new home for temporary exhibitions.

The display in the Apollo Hall is not just an occasion to remember the story of this monstrance’s creation and the dramatic turns in its later biography. It is, above all, an opportunity to look at this piece anew – not in the context of historical events or as one of the sumptuous exhibits of the museum’s Treasure Gallery, but closer to the way that the Niguliste’s congregation would have perceived it around the turn of the 16th century – in all its originality and splendour, befitting the momentous holy sacrament that it was made to hold.

The modern capabilities of the photographer’s art make it possible to delve deeper and to examine details that were never intended for even an observant eye. Part of the display will be an installation built around close-up photography and the substantial enlargement of the images, inviting viewers to “enter into” the gleaming architectural framework and feel themselves amid a “Gothic forest” occupied by saints, apostles, fantastic creatures and plants.

The exhibition has been prepared by the State Hermitage’s Department of Western European Applied Art (headed by Olga Kostiuk).

The curator and author of the exhibition concept is Yekaterina Nikolayevna Nekrasova-Shchedrinskaya, head of the Precious Metals and Stone Sector within the Department of Western European Applied Art.

The design for the exhibition was developed by the State Hermitage’s Department for Exhibition and Design Work. The artists-designers are Boris Kuziakin (the head of the department) and Anna Sokolova.

The exhibit was photographed by Alexander Botkov of the State Hermitage’s Editorial and Publishing Department.

The display is supplemented by a video film specially created by the State Hermitage’s Sector for the Production of Electronic Productions (headed by Irina Melnikova).

The exhibition can be visited by all holders of entrance tickets to the Main Museum Complex.