Public Lecture by Maximilien Durand

Opening Reception from 5:30 - 6:00 p.m.

Lecture begins at 6:00 p.m.

The Creation of the Department of Byzantine and Eastern Christian Art at the Louvre Museum: Scientific and Museographic Challenges in the Face of the Contemporary World

Dumbarton Oaks and Georgetown University’s Modern Greek Studies Program cordially invite you to the lecture by Maximilien Durand, director of the Department of Byzantine and Eastern Christian Art at the Musée du Louvre. The event is under the auspices of the Villa Albertine -Embassy of France, the Embassy of Greece, and the Archaeological Institute of America Washington, D.C. Society.

October 23, 2025 | Maximilien Durand explores the scientific and cultural challenges of the Louvre’s new Department of Byzantine and Eastern Christian Art.

Byzantine and Eastern Christian art forms a coherent art-historical ensemble, recognized as such by the scientific community. The Louvre’s new department is intended to bring together over 20,000 artworks currently dispersed across seven departments. The museum’s collections in this field are among the finest in the world, ranging from the beginnings of Christian imagery to the 19th century. Key works such as the Bawit monastery, the Emesa vase, the Barberini ivory and the lapis lazuli icon from the Treasury of Saint Denis are currently on public display, but lack a meaningful presentation space illuminating their artistic and historical context. Grouping these works together in a coherent and identified space directly linked to the museum’s other departments will shed light on the connection with the late Greco-Roman world, the flourishing of Byzantine art, and its endurance in a region where the Islamic civilisation also flourished. The department’s reach extends also to Eastern Europe and Russia.

Maximilien Durand is director of the Department of Byzantine and Eastern Christian Art at the Musée du Louvre. As the author of numerous publications, he has organized over twenty-five exhibitions, notably Antinoopolis: Beyond Life, Beyond Fashion, Shadows of Elegance in the Desert at the Musée des Tissus in Lyon (2013-2014), Icons from the National Museum of Art Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko in Kyiv at the Louvre (2023-2024) and Icons from Ukraine (2024-25) at the Louvre-Lens.

He has held the offices of vice-president of the Centre International d’Étude des Textiles Anciens (CIETA) and president of the International Association for the Study of Silk Road Textiles. Prior to joining the Louvre, he was director of the Musée des Tissus et des Arts Décoratifs in Lyon (2011-2017), head of conservation for Christian Dior Couture (2018-2019), and deputy director of Collections and Research at Paris Musées, in parallel to his role as curator of the Paris Catacombs (2021-2022). He has been teaching at the École du Louvre for many years (Late Antique and Byzantine Art).