DURATION: November 13, 2024 – April 27, 2025
BENAKI MUSEUM OF GREEK CULTURE
On Tuesday, November 12, 2024, the Benaki Museum of Greek Culture inaugurated the exhibition “Art in Gold: Jewelry in the Hellenistic Period.” The exhibition is part of the project “The Collections of the Benaki Museum and Contemporary Creation”.
In addition to objects from the Benaki Museum’s own collections, the exhibition features works from 30 museums and Archaeological Ephorates across Greece, as well as from five museums abroad.
The aim of the exhibition is twofold: to showcase Hellenistic jewelry as multi-dimensional objects and to explore the techniques used in their creation—a subject rarely highlighted in exhibition settings. The study of these techniques was conducted by the Metalwork Laboratory team at the Benaki Museum’s Conservation Department.
The exhibition focuses on Hellenistic jewelry, which is conventionally dated from 323 BC, the year of Alexander the Great’s death, to 30 BC, when Rome annexed Egypt. In the vast Hellenistic world, stretching from the Adriatic to Afghanistan and from Ethiopia to present-day Ukraine, a massive network of kingdoms and cities emerged. Within its borders, diverse and multilingual populations, including artisans, were in constant movement, exchanging knowledge and information. This exchange led to an unprecedented increase in technological expertise and a cultural osmotic process, a key factor in the development and establishment of a shared artistic expression, visible in the period’s jewelry.
Hellenistic jewelry reflects the immense quantity of gold appropriated by Alexander the Great from the treasuries of the Persian kings. The ostentatious display of luxury, evident in their “baroque” aesthetics, complex techniques, almost staged exaggeration, and increased use of precious and semi-precious stones, reflects the ideology of monarchy.
The gold jewelry, which was predominantly intended for women, is viewed as a means of displaying social status and wealth, as well as a companion for significant life stages (coming-of-age, marriage, death). These items also served as amulets for protection, votive offerings to deities, investments of economic capital, and as decoration for garments and, primarily, the body, to enhance beauty.
In addition to the jewelry, which forms the core of the exhibition, terracotta figurines and vessels illustrate how they were worn on the human body.
The exhibition is organized into thematic sections, one of which is dedicated to the technology of Hellenistic goldsmithing, featuring the tools of a 2nd-century BC jeweler. In the same area, a video will be presented documenting the result of an experimental process lasting approximately three years, which aimed at reconstructing a piece of a valuable Hellenistic gold diadem from the Benaki Museum’s collection. The reconstruction was carried out by Akis Goumas, a jeweler and expert in ancient Greek jewelry techniques. The video was made possible by the generous contributions of the Ioannis F. Kostopoulos Foundation, the Benaki Museum Friends Society, Seferiadis Precious Metals, Softone, AbFab Productions, and the Benaki Museum’s Gift Shop.
To familiarize visitors with the basic construction techniques of Hellenistic jewelry, five animated videos will be shown, offering an accessible way to present the process of crafting five selected pieces from the Benaki Museum’s collection. Additionally, in a showcase without protective glass, visitors, including those with vision impairment, will have the opportunity to touch various types of wires and molds used in the reproduction of decorative motifs. By touch, they will be able to understand the process of transforming a flat sheet of metal into a fully-formed human figure (using the repoussé technique). These pieces in the showcase were also created by Akis Goumas.
At the center of the exhibition hall, a large portion of the so-called “Treasury of Thessaly / Karpenisi” is displayed. This collection, split between the Benaki Museum and the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, consists of exquisitely crafted female jewelry, intricate creations attributed to an important Macedonian workshop from the 3rd-2nd century BC, likely belonging to members of the Macedonian court.
A special section of the exhibition focuses on contemporary creation, where eight artists from Greece and abroad present their own works. The participating artists are Peter Bauhuis, Akis Goumas, Patrick Davison, Pura Ferreiro, Anastasia Kandaraki, Lucia Massei, Dimitris Nikolaidis, and Despina Pantazopoulou. Their pieces are inspired by Hellenistic jewelry from the Benaki Museum.
The exhibition is curated by archaeologist Irini Papageorgiou, Curator of the Department of Prehistoric, Ancient Greek, and Roman Collections at the Benaki Museum, and will be accompanied by a scientific catalog in both Greek and English.