Baroque sculptures on display in Vilnius museum won't return to Lviv for now

The international exhibition entitled "The Mysticism of Baroque Sculpture: Johann Georg Pinsel and other 18th-century Lviv Masters" was scheduled to end on Sunday, May 22, but has been extended for a week, Monika Petruliene, the museum's spokeswoman, has told BNS.

It was decided not to return the 20 valuable 18th century gilded wooden sculptures to the Borys Voznytsky National Art Gallery in Lviv until it is safe to do so.

According to Petruliene, the sculptures will be moved to the Rundale Palace Museum in Latvia in June and will remain on display there until fall. Curators at the Dresden State Art Collections in Germany are interested in extending the exhibition tour in the fall.

"The museum of the Palace of the Grand Dukes is in weekly contact with the staff of the Borys Voznytsky National Art Gallery in Lviv," the spokeswoman said. "They are discussing when it will be safe to return the sculptures to Ukraine."

"[Ukraine's] major museums have not yet reopened, although smaller ones in safer areas are gradually reopening to visitors," she added.

The sculptures arrived in Lithuania from Ukraine two weeks before the start of the war.

More than 21,000 people have visited the exhibition in Vilnius.