This November, Xi Jinping, the President of China, expressed support for returning the marbles during his first state visit to Greece. For now, though, the Parthenon marbles remain in their London gallery. Join our new membership program on Patreon today. JSTOR is a digital library for scholars, researchers, and students. By: Allison C. December 3, December 4, Share Tweet Email Print. Reclining Dionysos, from Parthenon east pediment, ca.
Have a correction or comment about this article? Please contact us. Hostilities with France, and the possibility of the hoard falling into French hands, led Elgin to request that a British warship docked in the port of Piraeus near Athens take the heaviest sculptures from the Parthenon pediments.
Elgin had managed to keep the marbles from the French, but the same could not be said about his own person: Crossing France on his homeward journey to London, he was impris- oned and remained in custody in Pau near the Spanish border for three years until Once back in London, he began new negotiations to get the Ottoman government to authorize the second shipment of statuary, which left Piraeus in Elgin hoped to re-create the missing sections of each piece.
To carry this out, he put forward the name of the most important neoclassical sculptor of the time, Antonio Canova. The display was a sensation, attracting a huge number of artists and academics. Despite his title, Elgin was not a very rich man, especially after when he faced a ruinous divorce settlement.
Feeling the pinch, he put pressure on the British government to buy the collection. In he deposited the marbles in the home of the Duke of Devonshire and mobilized his contacts to talk up the value of the pieces and warn against the danger of them falling into foreign hands. The country was divided among those who considered they should be bought for the nation, those who considered them a waste of money, and those like the poet Byron who excoriated Elgin for taking them in the first place.
Negotiations for the sale of the Parthenon sculptures to the British crown unleashed a blazing controversy about the artistic value of the pieces. Should they be bought with public money? And was it even legal to take them out of Greece in the first place? How Much?! I have bought them on purpose for you!
Never think of Bread when you can have Stones so wondrous cheap!! And had rather not buy them at present. Give us Bread! Parliament approved the sale by a very tight margin: 82 votes in favor and 80 against.
Taking the long view, he was justified in anticipating the sense of national pride Britain would feel for the marbles, and in time it became commonly accepted that the nation had purchased them for a song. One of the greatest artworks in human history was now housed in the middle of London, a vital propaganda tool in projecting the image of the British Empire as civilized and benign.
After spending several years in a temporary facility, the marbles were moved to the Elgin Room in the British Museum in As the exhibition had an educational purpose, providing models for artists, the original pieces were displayed together with molds of the missing fragments.
The originals, in fact, made up only around 60 percent of the whole display. In the s work began on a new room that would display only the originals, whose surface texture and color had been altered due to a rigorous but poorly supervised cleaning in preparation for display. The Duveen Gallery, named after the businessman who financed it, was completed in but installation of the marbles was halted by World War II. During the Nazi raids on London, the marbles were put into storage, and the Duveen Gallery itself suffered serious bomb damage.
The space was restored and finally opened to the public in The remains of the Parthenon sits on the Acropolis hill overlooking Athens. Image source, Getty Images. For Elgin, at least, the triumph was short-lived. The Elgin Marbles. The Acropolis Museum is dedicated to the preservation of sculptures from Athens' golden age, including copies of the Elgin Marbles.
Published 5 December Published 15 October Published 1 March Published 21 June British Museum. It all happened sometime between and These are the years that Lord Elgin was in Athens as a diplomat. Instead, the museum insists that Elgin took them with the complete knowledge and permission of the Ottoman authorities. Furthermore, it is believed that Elgin took around half of what was still standing of the Parthenon at that time.
Eventually, they were acquired by the British Museum in London. The marble sculptures date back over 2, years and were first constructed in honor of the Greek goddess, Athena.
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