Information about the object:
The mosaic, created by Jozef Mehoffer at the request of Archbishop Jozef Teodorowicz, is located in the dome and pendentives of the oldest part of the Armenian Cathedral in Lviv. It was created in 1912-1913. In preparation for the work, the artist travelled to Italy at the end of 1910 and the beginning of 1911 - he went to Venice and Ravenna, and in Murano he visited the mosaic workshops of Gianesi, to whom the project fell in 1913. On the vaulting of the dome was a representation of the Holy Trinity alluding to the pieta. The pendentives feature orantics inspired by Byzantine art. The whole is complemented by symbolic ornaments and medieval-inspired birds of paradise and crosses from Armenian Gospels. The original project envisaged a larger number of mosaics, but this was not realised (due to, among other things, the First World War, the economic crisis and changes in artistic trends in the 1920s).

Completed works:
The work carried out in 2020 followed the conservation work carried out in 2019 on the mosaic by Jozef Mehoffer, which was funded by the Polonica Institute. In 2020, work of a technical and conservation nature began.

During the course of the work on the mosaic, action was also initiated on the paintings, which were primarily cleaned of loose debris. Subsequently, the plaster separations in the deeper layers and the delamination of the plaster in the upper layers were sealed. In the north-eastern part, the structure of the weakened monument was reinforced. After being disinfected twice, pulps were laid to absorb salt from the paintings. At the same time, the final chemical cleaning of the mosaic surface was carried out, and the mosaic in the central western presbytery was aesthetically integrated. The pulps were then removed from the paintings.

Funding: Programme of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage "Protection of cultural heritage abroad"

More about the project: https://polonika.pl

• Stowarzyszenie Absolwentów Akademii Dziedzictwa, realizacja w roku 2020.