The gold thread epitaph from the Tismana Monastery is one of the most valuable religious objects of this kind in Romania.
“The “air” given to the Tismana Monastery by Maria Doamna and her daughters, in 1681, in the days of Șerban Vodă Cantacuzino, and photographed by Alexandru Antoniu in 1898.
Tismana’s epitaph is one of the most valuable embroideries that have ever been preserved on Gorjenese soil. It was worked with gold thread, and only two embroideries with similar scenes are known in all of Wallachia. At the Cotroceni Monastery Church and the Lady Church in Bucharest. An iconographic painting composed of two scenes, the Descent from the Cross of the Savior and the Placing of the Savior in the tomb with all the burial ritual, by the apostles Joseph and Nicodemus and of course by the Myrrh-bearing women, the only witnesses of what happened. A remarkable artistic representation, on the border of which the seraphim and cherubs are not missing, nor the register with tall donors praying on their knees.
Without the presence of this precious “air”, which recalls the moments of passion and the moment of the Savior’s death, the entire liturgical ritual of Denia sung at Tismana on Passion Friday was unthinkable”, explained museographer Jean Cernitoiu on his Facebook page.
