Easter Tapestries Return to St. John the Divine

The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine has hoisted into place two poignant — and quite beautiful — reminders of the suffering and penance that always precede rebirth in the Christian liturgical calendar.

On Monday, members of the cathedral’s Textile Conservation Laboratory raised two of the 12 Barberini tapestries in St. John’s collection, “The Crucifixion” and “Agony in the Garden,” into the arches of the north and south transept for display during the Easter season.

It is the first time either of these tableaux have been on public view since the devastating fire in 2001 that heavily damaged the north transept and two other Barberini tapestries.

“We’re remembering the agony and the crucifixion first — and, in a way, we’ve had that, too,” said the Very Rev. Dr. James A. Kowalski, dean of the cathedral, which is the seat of the Episcopal Diocese of New York.

“It’s been a long journey until we got to this point.” The cathedral was rededicated last year after seven years of recovery, restoration, conservation and cleaning.

“We’re very lucky to have a treasury of art that can be used as this art was intended,” Dean Kowalski said — that is, to tell stories appropriate to the liturgical season of Lent, which began on Ash Wednesday (Feb. 25 this year) and will end on Holy Saturday (April 11), the day before Easter.

Though the tapestries were made by Giovanni Francesco Romanelli in the mid-1600s, they take their name from Cardinal Barberini, who commissioned them for Pope Urban VIII, his uncle. The pope died just as the set was being finished.

The tapestries were presented to the cathedral in 1891. When “The Crucifixion” was unrolled on Monday, perhaps the most striking sensation was the vividness of the blue in Mary’s robe and the red in John’s.

Details around the borders also popped out, like the bees symbolizing the Barberini family. Marlene Eidelheit, director of the textile laboratory, emphasized that she and her colleagues were as conservative as possible in their intervention, which included cleaning, interstitial weaving, spot patching and overall reinforcement. “We don’t do restoration,” she said. “We make sure it’s healthier and stronger.”

Coincidentally, as the 16-foot-high tapestries were raised into position, James Wetzel, a Juilliard senior who is the cathedral’s current organ scholar, was performing the weekly demonstration of the Aeolian-Skinner great organ.

After he finished Bach’s Fugue in A minor, he played an ethereal — almost elegaic — improvisational piece to accompany the tapestry raising. Acknowledging Lent, he based it on the hymn “40 Days and 40 Nights.”

Taken From NYTimes.com