» Byzantine Fresco Chapel Museum, The

The Byzantine Fresco Chapel Museum houses two 13th century Byzantine frescoes--the only intact Byzantine frescoes in the Western Hemisphere.

These masterworks--a dome and an apse--were ripped and stolen out of a chapel near Lysi in the Turkish-occupied section of Cyprus in the 1980s, cut into pieces and smuggled off the island by thieves prepared to sell them piece by piece. The fresco fragments were rescued from the thieves by The Menil Foundation with the knowledge and approval of the Church of Cyprus, the rightful owner of the frescoes.

The Menil Foundation then funded a painstaking two-year restoration of the paintings. Numerous private donors helped fund the construction of the Chapel Museum, which combines rough stone, opaque glass and rich woods. The Church of Cyprus is allowing a long-term loan of the frescoes in the new building designed especially for them by architect François de Menil.

The 4,000-square-foot museum opened in 1997.

Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau - Member