FORT WORTH, TX.- The Kimbell Art Museum will present the special exhibition The Holy Sepulcher: Treasures from the Terra Sancta Museum, Jerusalem from March 15 through June 28, 2026, in the Renzo Piano Pavilion. This extraordinary exhibition showcases more than sixty objects in silver, gold, enamel, and precious jewels, given by European monarchs and rulers to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, a site of Christian devotion and pilgrimage, where they have been used in religious ceremonies for centuries. Including dazzling reliquaries, crosses, candlesticks, chalices, and vestments representing the height of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century craftsmanship, many of these objects have no equivalent anywhere else in the world. Traveling to only two venues in North America, the exhibition represents the first—and possibly only—time these treasures will be seen in the US. The Wall Street Journal called the exhibition, “Opulent. Sumptuous. Spectacular. Luxurious. Dazzling. Plus every other adjective for fabulousness you can conjure up,” when it was shown last fall at New York’s Frick Collection.
“The splendor and scale of these precious objects and works of art are stunning,” said Eric Lee, director of the Kimbell Art Museum. “We are incredibly fortunate that works of such staggering craftsmanship—and from what is arguably the holiest site in Christendom—may be enjoyed by visitors to the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth. I extend my gratitude to the Custodia Terrae Sanctae for allowing these treasures to travel to the Unites States ahead of the opening of the Terra Sancta Museum.”
For the past two thousand years, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher has been a principal religious center of the Christian faith, a holy site of devotion and pilgrimage. The church was first built by Emperor Constantine in the fourth century on what is traditionally believed to be the site of Jesus of Nazareth’s death, burial, and resurrection. In the Middle Ages, the Franciscan order arrived in the Holy Land, establishing the Custodia, the body that is now entrusted with safeguarding some eighty-two Christian holy sites in the Middle East, including the Church of the Holy Sepulcher…