Antependia

The exhibition displays six antependia embellished with forged metal decorations from the Vilnius Church of the Holy Spirit, which had been used to adorn the church altars up to the 1980s and were then abandoned. The antependia were produced around 1784 by goldsmith Tadeusz Skędzierski (†1789) from Vilnius, who made and repaired liturgical paraphernalia for this church in 1779 and 1784 and also renovated the great monstrance.

As the antependia had gradually fallen into disuse, the background textiles deteriorated and certain decorative elements were lost irretrievably. In 2012, the antependia were restored, the textiles were replaced and the lost details were reconstructed from photographs. The restoration works were carried out by metal restorer Oksana Čepeliuk and wood restorer Virgilijus Adomavičius. The exposition is further supplemented with the antependia dating back to the end of the 19th – the beginning of the 20th centuries, brought from the Vilnius Church of St. Nicholas and the Church of Naujasis Daugėliškis.