PERMANENT EXHIBITIONS
The Icon Gallery-Ohrid is a part of the Ni Institute for Protection of Cultural Monuments and Museum-Ohrid In which permanent exhibition exposed the most significant samples of icons, a total of 37, of which 6 doublesided or bilateral. Chronological belonging of the artworks is from the middle of the 11th until the middle of the 19th century.
Ohrid icon collection, next to the Sinai collection from the monastery of St. Catherine, the collection from Mt. Athos and Russian icons, is one of the most valuable and most significant collections of icons in the world. Most of them have been painted in the Ohrid painting workshops, and some of the icons in the past centuries, as gifts for the Ohrid churches, were brought from Constantinople or Salonika and are characterized by an exceptional colorist solutions, grace and beauty of the painting.
The high artistic quality, the historical and cultural meaning, as well as the high degree of preservation of the icons of this collection, in particular the most valuable and most beautiful samples from the 11th to the 14th century, which represent a real masterpieces of the Byzantine panel painting, contributed they, both with some samples from the post Byzantine period and the period of the Revival, to be exhibited in the permanent exhibition that is considered one of the very few such collections in the world. Ohrid icons represent significant testimonials about the significance and role of the city of Ohrid as religious, cultural and artistic center within the Byzantine Empire, the Serbian medieval state and the Ottoman Empire, as well as its relations with other developed cultural and artistic centers in the first row of the Constantinople and Salonica.
Through the icons of this collection one can follow the development of the icon painting in the period of nearly one thousand years, from the middle of the 11th until the mid-nineteenth century, and different time epochs have left their chronological and stylistic features on some of them.
For the first time, the icons from the Ohrid collection were exhibited in the outer narthex of the church of the Holy Virgin Peribleptos in 1961 on the occasion of the 12th Byzantologist's Congress that took place in Ohrid.
In the period between 1981 and 1983, the building located in the courtyard of the church, opposite its entrance, was reconstructed and revitalized into a modern gallery of icons where the collection is located still today, enabling in this way the most beautiful icons from this collection to be available to all medieval art lovers and numerous explorers and scientists.
In 2000, on the occasion of the great jubilee of Christianity, the Icon Gallery-Ohrid was re-adapted with a new concept of the exhibition and modernization of the spatial, security and micro-climate conditions.
Most of the icons and other objects of the collection (especially those of the permanent exhibition and all others that have been displayed in various occasions) are restored in accordance with the principles and rules for the conservation and protection of cultural heritage.
Besides the permanent exhibition in the Icon Gallery-Ohrid, a large number of icons from the collection as well as some other items from it have been exhibited so far at numerous temporary exhibitions in the country and abroad.
ICON GALLERY
HISTORICAL EXHIBITION "NATIONAL LIBERATION MOVEMENT IN OHRID"
The Memorial house of Hristo Uzunov, which houses the permanent historical exhibition, was built in the middle of the 19th century. In 1960, the house was passed to the possession of the National Museum of Ohrid, and since 1968 has the status of cultural monument. In 1977-1978, the house was reconstructed and since 1982 it has housed the permanent historical exhibition "National Liberation Movement in the Region of Ohrid", which existed until 1989.
In 1996 the house was again declared a cultural monument due to its values ​​ as Ohrid old urban architecture. Then it was open again to the visitors with a new concept of the permanent exhibition "National Liberation Movement in the Region of Ohrid", with certain additions, with documents and items related to the Ilinden period and with the national liberation movement in this area, and a memorial room dedicated to the commander-the revolutionary Hristo Uzunov.
The exhibition is conceptually divided into two floors. There are seventy objects displayed, photographs and documents related to the revolutionary road and the creation of an independent state, the Republic of Macedonia. On the first floor is presented the Revival period (19th century) in Ohrid and Ohrid region, the struggle of educators against Hellenisаtion and the emergence of secret literary revolutionary societies. The second floor is devoted to the formation and activity of the Ohrid district committee of TMORO (1895), the Ilinden Uprising (1903), the Balkan wars and the First and Second World War and the proclamation of an independent and sovereign Republic of Macedonia.
Besides the permanent historical exhibition, temporary exhibitions on history, art history, conservation and numerous conferences and symposia are organized in this memorial house.
ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXHIBITION
The permanent archaeological exhibition at the House of Robev Family, that's spanning prehistory, antiquity and the medieval period, is currently closed because there are ongoing works on its new conception, enrichment with exhibits and presentation in new, modern showcases. At the moment the visitors can see only the so-called Golden Room.
It is isolated from the overall ambience of the old urban house of Robev brothers. It is, actually, a "room" in a room. The interior has only one circular rotating showcase that fully covers the space. In the showcase is presented the reconstructed Archaic tomb 132 (6th-5th century BC), from the site at the Upper gate in Ohrid. Two cremated deceased have been buried in the grave with grave contributions made of gold, silver, bronze, amber and ceramics.
Most significant of the grave contributions are the golden burial mask and the golden hand that are pointing out the fact that in the Ohrid archaic settlement there has existed goldsmith's workshop, which has also made and the famous golden ritual mask from the more significamt Archaic necropolis "Trebenishta" near the village Gorenci, Ohrid.
Around the grave construction, of an appropriate stratigraphic level, all golden archaeological findings from the sites in Ohrid and Ohrid are presented: from Upper Gate, Samuel's Fortress, Plaoshnik, the Old Bazaar, Trebenishta Fortress and Crvejnca-Prentov Most, which chronologically belong to the early-antique and Macedonian-Hellenic period (4th/3rd-2nd century BC), the time of the so-called "Gold centuries" of Lychnitida (today's Ohrid-Struga region). At the corners of the Golden Room, next to the rotating showcase, all the other gold archaeological objects, discovered in the archaeological sites of the Ohrid region, with chronological background of the Antique and the medieval period are exposed. A total of 475 golden and gilded archaeological artifacts are exposed here (along with the 28 made of of silver, bronze, iron, glass, amber and ceramics from the grave 132).