Benaki Museum

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Benaki Museum
Established 1930
Location Athens, Greece
Website The Benaki Museum

The Benaki Museum, established and endowed in 1930 by Antonis Benakis in memory of his father Emmanuel Benakis, is housed in the Benakis family mansion in downtown Athens, Greece. The museum houses Greek works of art from the prehistorical to the modern times, an extensive collection of Asian art, hosts periodic exhibitions and maintains a state-of-the-art restoration and conservation workshop. Although the museum initally housed a collection that included Islamic art, Chinese porcelain and exhibits on toys, it's 2000 re-opening led to the creation of satellite museums that focused on specific collections, allowing the main museum to focus on Greek culture over the span of the country's history.

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[edit] Athens campus

The museum's primary home is in the Benakis' home opposite the National Garden on Queen Sofias Avenue and owes its existence to the generoisty of Antonis Benakis, whose family lived in Alexandria. In 1931, Benakis donated the family's home in Athens and their collection of more than 37,000 Islamic and Byzantine objects. More than 9,000 artefacts were added by the 1970s, which spurred donations from other sources.[1] Benakis remained active in the museum until his death in 1954.[2]

Under the directorship of Angelos Delivorrias, the museum added more than 60,000 objects, books and documents, some of which were purchased and others were donated. Delivorrias opts to focus on displaying donated items in order to encourage public participation and strengthen the community's ties to the museum.[1] The museum also focus on the fact that Greek history does not begin and end with specific events but rather exists on a continuum that exists today.[3]

Parts of the museum's collections have travelled worldwide, including Canada in 2008,[4] the United States in 1959 in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution[5] and in 2005, an Ancient Greek solid gold drinking cup left Greece for the first time and traveled to the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney and the Melbourne Immigration Museum in Melbourne, Australia.[6]

[edit] 2000 Re-opening

In 2000, the Benaki Museum re-opened following a $20 million renovation and restoration of the building, which had been damaged in an earthquake.[3]. The renovation allowed it to become the only museum in Greece that brings visitors through all ages of Greek culture and history. It is also unique in that it does not focus on nationalism but rather recognizes and celebrates the foreign influences on Greek culture.[1]

Although the museum's director, Angelos Delivorrias, came up with the idea to re-focus the museum and its exhibits in 1973, it was more than 25 years later that he was able to make this a new reality. This reality involved moving the museum's collections of Islamic Art, Chinese porcelain and toys to other locations so that the main museum in Athens would focus solely on Greece.[1]

[edit] Satellite Museums

Over the years it has been further endowed by various donors, and it now includes the seaside Kouloura Mansion in Palaio Phaliro, which is to house a Children's Toys Collection, the Benaki Islamic Art Museum in the Kerameikos district, the Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas Museum in downtown Athens, and the Delta House in Kifissia, which houses the Historical Archive Collection.

[edit] Benaki Islamic Art Museum

As part of the museum's re-focusing on Greek culture, its Islamic collection was moved to a new home in 2004 in time for the Athens Olympics. The new museum also features new galleries for temporary traveling exhibits.[7]

Inaugurated on 27 July 2004, the museum occupies more than 1000 square meters of remodeled space showcasing: ceramics, pottery, metalwork, gold, woodcarvings, glasswork and textiles, bone carvings, inscribed funerary steles, arms and armor. The museum's collection is said to rank among the most important worldwide and includes masterpieces from India, Persia, Mesopotamia, the Middle East, Arabia, Egypt, North Africa, Sicily, Spain and Asia Minor. Covering Islamic art from the 7th through the 19th centuries, it has a rich collection of Ottoman art from the Empire's peak in the 16th century.[8]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d Dina Kyriakidou (2000-07-22). New Museum Celebrates Greece Through the Ages. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved on 2008-05-29.
  2. ^ A Museum with a Point of View. The New York Times (1981-12-27). Retrieved on 2008-05-29.
  3. ^ a b Frederika Randall (2000-05-26). Reopened Benaki Museum Shows Seven Millennia of Greek Art Treaures. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved on 2008-05-29.
  4. ^ Paul Gessell (2008-05-24). Greeks Bearing Gifts. The Ottawa Citizen. Retrieved on 2008-05-29.
  5. ^ Greek Costumes on Display Here. The New York Times (1959-10-25). Retrieved on 2008-05-29.
  6. ^ A Cup Commeth. The Age (2005-09-27). Retrieved on 2008-05-29.
  7. ^ Victoria Kyriakopoulous (2004-08-08). Athens Shows off its Olympic Face-lift. The San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved on 2008-05-29.
  8. ^ Mona Khazindar (2005-01-08). Islamic Arts in Athens. Arab News. Retrieved on 2008-05-29.

[edit] External links

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Coordinates: 37°58′33.38″N 23°44′25.47″E / 37.9759389, 23.7404083


v • d • e
Museums with major collections of Islamic Art
  1. Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo, Egypt
    103,000 objects [1]
  2. Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum, Istanbul, Turkey
    40,000 objects [2]
  3. British Museum, London, UK
    40,000 objects [3]
  4. Tareq Rajab Museum, Kuwait City, Kuwait
    30,000 objects [4]
  5. Khalili Collection¹
    20,000 objects [5]
  1. Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK
    19,000 objects [6]
  2. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA
    12,000 objects [7]
  3. Musée du Louvre², Paris, France
    10,000 objects [1]
  4. Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece
    8,000 objects [8]

    Please Note: ¹ Khalili Collection; Largest Private Collection - ² Musée du Louvre; 2005 Annual Report - Tableau récapitulatif de l’état d'avancement de l'informatisation des collections fin 2005, pg 185. n.b. it should be noted that this list is controversial, in so far as it contains only qualitative analysis of museum holdings. These may or may not reflect actual artistic quality of collections in question.