'Art in Gold: Jewellery in Hellenistic Times' at Benaki continues to April 2025

The exhibition 'Art in Gold: Jewellery in Hellenistic Times' is continuing to dazzle visitors to the Benaki Museum in Kolonaki, where it will be shown until the end of April 2025.

The exhibition highlights the art of jewellery making in the Hellenistic period, following the conquests of Alexander the Great, where it attained its zenith.

What messages did the iconography of the jewellery of this era convey? What kinds of jewellery did members of the aristocracy prefer? How were brides bedecked before the wedding ceremony? Which pieces of jewellery accompanied the adult dead and which those who had departed prematurely? How were these exquisite specimens of the ancient goldsmith’s art made? Can the Hellenistic tradition inspire contemporary creators?

These and many more questions are explored in the exhibition 'Art in Gold: Jewellery in Hellenistic Times'. With the participation of 30 museums and Ephorates of Antiquities in Greece and five international museums, it presents unique assemblages of gold jewellery of the Hellenistic period (323-30 BC). Among them is a large part of the elaborate pieces of jewellery from the ‘Thessaly / Karpenisi Hoard’, which is shared between the National Archaeological Museum in Athens and the Benaki Museum and comprise 44 pieces of women's jewellery with unclear provenance in Greece. Second-century BC goldsmith’s tools found in Bosnia-Herzegovina are exhibited for the first time in Greece, while informative texts and graphics, as well as videos and animations relating to the basic techniques of jewellery making accompany the exhibition. 

A video showing contemporary jewellery maker and researcher Akis Goumas reconstructing parts of a precious diadem in the Benaki Museum - the result of several years of research and experimentation - will be screened in a dedicated room.

Contemporary creations by Peter Bauhuis, Akis Goumas, Patrick Davison, Pura Ferreiro, Anastasia Kandaraki, Lucia Massei, Dimitris Nikolaidis, and Despina Pantazopoulou, inspired by items of jewellery at the Benaki Museum, will be exhibited alongside the antiquities.

As archaeologist and curator at the Museum's prehistoric, ancient Greek and Roman collections told Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA-MPA), "The initial idea took form nearly eight years ago when I first collaborated with Akis Goumas, jeweller and researcher of ancient jellery making techniques. I proposed that he reconstruct section of the diadem from the Thessaly Hoard, a precious and valuable diadem of extremely complicated construction. Within about 3.5 years, Akis Goumas reconstructed a section of the knitted chain and one of the two plaques shown in the section on technology." The video reveals details, she said.

Papageorgiou added, "Hellenistic jewellery reconstructions have been carried out by others also, but with modern tools. The difference - and the innovation we provide in the reconstruction - is that we found traces of ancient tools on the original piece of jewellery, and we were based on these to construct the tools we show at the exhibition and which were used in the experimental application. This collaboration, therefore, raised a lot of quesitons I wanted to asnwer, related to technical know-how and technical construction of Hellenistic jewellery."

She noted that the apex reached in gold jewellery making from 323 BC to 30 BC, the accepted dates of the Hellenistic era, was never repeated, as far as she knows, in Greece over the following centuries.
A large quantity of the gold in the royal Macedonian court came from the reserves of Persian kings after Alexander the Great's conquer. The art is also valuable in what it conveys of influences from Eastern and Egyptian motivs, and as part of trade exchanges.

(The exhibition "Art in gold. Jewellery in Hellenistic times" is part of the Action "The Collections of the Benaki Museum and Contemporary Design" of the Program "Attiki", Partnership Agreement 2021-2027, and is co-funded by the European Union.)

For information, see: https://www.benaki.org/index.php?option=com_events&view=event&id=1027469&lang=en

(Photos: Diadem, hair decorations, buckle from woman's dress)