On Thursday, February 26, from 4:00 PM to 5:40 PM, a joint project of the University of Tartu, the Estonian Academy of Arts, and the Tallinn City Museum will be presented at the Kiek in de Kök Fortification Museum, which will study rare 16th-century tapestries over the next year.

The opening event of the project, which will be presented in the Maiden Tower lecture hall of the Kiek in de Kök Fortification Museum, will give the floor to researchers who will introduce the content and goals of the undertaking and also provide an idea of ​​the expected results. The research project serves the purpose of preserving, conserving, and exhibiting unique European cultural heritage in the future.

Researchers and specialists from the University of Tartu, the Estonian Academy of Arts, and the Tallinn City Museum will use interdisciplinary methods to study 16th-century tapestries that are housed in the Tallinn City Museum throughout the year.

The project “Global and Local: Tallinn’s Priceless Early Modern Tapestry” brings together the expertise of art historians, historians, exact scientists, curators and conservators. The focus is on the tapestries with the theme of King Solomon and plant motifs, commissioned by the Tallinn City Council, and the altarpiece or antependium of the Olofis Church, commissioned by Mayor Lutke van Oyten.

The works were made in the 16th century in the Dutch tapestry workshops in Edingen and Brussels, from which the most important European dynasties also commissioned tapestries. The rare tapestries were already among the most valuable art commissions at the time of their creation.

“It is a wonder that such old, artistically masterful and also materially valuable objects have survived in Tallinn,” says the project leader, Kerttu Palginõmm, a researcher in textile history at the Institute of History and Archaeology of the University of Tartu, who will give an overview of the project at the opening event. Tallinn City Museum’s Research Director Pia Ehasalu will talk more about Tallinn’s early modern textile treasures. Hannes Vinnal, visiting associate professor of heritage protection and conservation at the Estonian Academy of Arts, will provide background on the connections between local dye art and tapestries and the global dye trade, and Riina Rammo, associate professor of archaeology at the Institute of History and Archaeology at the University of Tartu, will explain the possibilities of carpet material research.

The research project “Global and Local: Tallinn’s Priceless Early Modern Tapestry” (KUM-TA133) is funded by the Ministry of Culture from the research and development programme “Estonian Culture Research and Development Programme 2023–2026.”

Thursday, February 26, 4:00 p.m.-5:40 p.m.
Kiek in de Köki in the Maiden Tower lecture hall of the Fortress Museum:
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