Unique projectslike the “Slander of Apelles” of Sandro Botticelli and his workshop, which belongs to the collection of the Uffizi museum in Florence, “Saturn Devours His Children” of P.P. Rubens from the Prado Museum, the Chimera statue of 400 BC from Archaeological Museum of Florence and the Jug of “painter of Meidia” (circa 410 BC) which is in the British Museum, will “travel” to our country in order to be presented in the periodical exhibition “Meanings. Personifications and allegories from ancient times to today”, which will take place at Acropolis Museum from December 1, 2023 to April 14, 2024.

About 160 works of sculpture, ceramics, painting and metalwork from museums and collections abroad, of course also in Greece, such as the “Allegory of Divine Ascension” from the Byzantine and Christian Museum, the Plutus statuette (1st century AD) from the National Archaeological Museum, sections of mosaics with personifications of the Sea and the Ocean (270 -300 AD) from the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki and the painting “4 seasons” by Yannis Tsarouhis from a private collection, will frame the exhibitionwhich not only received the “green light” unanimously, but also received praise from the members of KAS.

“It is a very difficult exhibition, even the subject itself, because it is not only about a dialogue (such as for example the exhibition “Antiquity and Picasso” at the Museum of Cycladic Art which involved a dialogue between antiquities and works of contemporary art), but with a tetralogy: Antiquity, Byzantium, Renaissance, Contemporary Art”said the KAS member, professor Nikolaos Stampolidisgeneral director of the Acropolis Museum, who had the idea and curates the periodic exhibition.

As he also mentioned at the meeting, “Athens is no longer just a stop over for the islands, but is also a destination for the winter. So, it can be wonderful that people come for three or four days to see an exhibition, as the big museums do, e.g. the Louvre, the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York’.

As for the reason why the word “Meanings” has a small micron, N. Stampolidis explained: “So that the meaning can also be a thread”, as the theme of the exhibition, which is personifications and allegories, is also the thread that unites the different eras, from antiquity to the present day. “Greek culture is anthropocentric, that is, people imagined their gods in the image and likeness of themselves. Therefore, they personify concepts that, many times, between these personified concepts and their symbolism, we have the making of a story that is essentially an allegory,” he completed by talking about the timelessness of the theme.

The report is structured in sections Year, Nature (geographical terms, celestial bodies), God (deified concepts of natural and human elements), Person (mental, spiritual and physical states, emotions, spiritual works), Institution (Cities, Municipality, Democracy, Violence, State, Justice, Ceremonies), Allegories.

As noted at the meeting, the exhibition will be “opened” by Rubens’ work and “closed” by the Chimera statue, while the only work for which no response has yet been given to his loan request is the “Scream” by Edvard Munchwhich in the report could be about the “personification of despair”.

Finally, regarding the eight works from the British Museum that will participate in the exhibition, both the members and the CG of KAS pointed out that this is a scientific collaboration that favors relations between museums and is in no way related to the request for reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures which, as is known, has been recognized by a decision of the Intergovernmental Commission of UNESCO as intergovernmental/intergovernmental.