During the Hellenistic period, after the conquests of Alexander the Great, jewellery making reached its peak.
What messages were conveyed by the iconography of the jewellery of this period. What kind of jewellery was chosen by members of the aristocracy. How brides were adorned before marriage. Which jewellery accompanied the dead adults and which the unborn. How were these extraordinary examples of ancient goldsmithing made? Can the Hellenistic tradition inspire modern artists?;
These and even more questions are explored in the exhibition «Art in Gold. Jewellery in Hellenistic times».
With the participation of 30 museums and antiquities collections from Greece and five museums from abroad, unique sets of gold jewellery of the Hellenistic period (323-30 BC) are presented.
Among them, also, a large part of the elaborate jewellery of the «Treasure of Thessaly/Karpenisium». This is divided between the National Archaeological Museum of Athens and the Benaki Museum.
For the first time the Greek public will have the opportunity to see goldsmith tools from Bosnia-Herzegovina of the 2nd century BC. The exhibition will also be accompanied by a wealth of educational material with videos and animations on the basic techniques of Hellenistic jewellery making. In a specially designed room a video will be shown showing the reconstruction of parts of a baroque diadem at the Benaki Museum. The result of many years of experimentation and study by Akis Goumas, jeweller and student of ancient techniques.
Contemporary creations by Peter Bauhuis, Akis Goumas, Patrick Davison, Pura Ferreiro, Anastasia Kandarakis, Lucia Massei, Dimitris Nikolaidis and Despina Pantazopoulou, inspired by Benaki Museum jewellery, will be exhibited in the same space.
The exhibition «Art in Gold. Jewellery in Hellenistic times» is part of the Act: «The Collections of the Benaki Museum and Contemporary Creation», which has been included in the «ATTIKI» Programme of the NSRF 2021- 2027 and is co-funded by the European Union.
Source: benaki.org
