Culture Min: Peggy Zoumboulakis antiquities donation to the state an example to emulate
Aspasia-Eleni ("Peggy") Zoumboulakis turned over to the state 178 ancient objects and an icon of St Luke the Evangelist at an event in central Athens, in the presence of President of Greece Katerina Sakellaropoulou and Culture Minister Lina Mendoni.
In a statement, the ministry said that the well-known founder and owner of Zoumboulakis galleries is donating to the state a total of 6,099 objects that will be integrated into public museum collections by the ministry's related departments.
At the ceremony at Fethiye Mosque in the Plaka district of Athens, the ministry accepted 178 objects selected by the ministry that were produced at workshops in ancient Boeotia, along with the icon that is connected to the region of Thebes. "The example of Ms Zoumboulakis is one to be emulated, as all coscientious citizens who collect antquities must eventually turn over their collections to those to whom they truly belong, Greece and the Greek people," Mendoni said.
The objects were left over from the old antiques shop of Theodore Zoumboulakis that was run by his son Anastasios from 1963 to 1982, when the objects were sold to Peggy Zoumboulakis. Her right to ownership was recognized by the Ministry of Culture in successive decisions (1988, 1989, 1991). The state had decided it would buy the most important pieces of every period represented, totalling 1,111 objects, but Zoumboulakis decided not to proceed with the sale.
Antiquities
The objects cover a wide period, from the Mycenaean era to the Classical one. They include sections of clay painted Mycenaean larnakes (box-like objects), Cycladic Ψ- and Φ-shaped statuettes, various ceramic and alabaster vessels dated between the 15th and 13th centuries BC; a few Late Geometric vessels (8th century BC) decorated with birds and shields; and several statuettes from the Archaic (7th-6th centuries BC) and Classical (5th-4th centuries BC) eras depicting women and men, including black-fugure lekythoi and smaller vessels for liquids with Dionysiac and music scenes. The icon was made at the Ionian Sea region and is dated to the 17th century, although St Luke is associated with the Thebes area, which several of the antiquities come from.
