THESSALONIKA the LAND OF Alexander the Great

THE LOUVRE travel to Thessaloniki in      October 2012

Five Thessaloniki museums to host Louvre exhibits, artworks

In response to the successful exhibition entitled “In the kingdom of Alexander the Great – Ancient Macedonia” in France this year, the Louvre Museum will co-organize parallel exhibitions with 5 different museums in the town of Thessaloniki. The Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki will host sculptures from the French Museum including three artworks of Enlightment Age sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon (portraits of Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Denis Diderot) and one of Jacques-Nicolas Roettiers de la Tour (bronze medal of Louis XV). The above mentioned sculptures will be supplemented with sculptures of Macedonian philosophers, bearing reference to the extent to which the Age of Reason was molded by Greek philosophers, and how the French movement of the 18th century inspired the Modern Greek state in return.
The Museum of Byzantine Culture will present the Reliquary of the True Cross, which was given as a present to Charlemagne. Exhibits from the collection of the Byzantine Museum of Thessaloniki will also be presented in a thematic exhibition examining the Cross as a symbol of faith.
A large collection of 100 drawings created from 1600 to 1800 A.D., depicting different Greek myths, will be hosted at the Telloglion Arts Foundation. This collection belongs to the Graphic Arts department of the Louvre.
The Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art will present an Auguste Benson painting from 1827 entitled “After the Samothraki massacre”, sized 2.74m x 3.42m.
Last but not least, the National Museum of Modern Art will host Auguste Leloir’s “Apotheosis of Homer” from 1841, 1.47m x 1.95m.

SOURCE : STELLA TSOLAKIDOU