Exquisite Ancient Greek Earring One of Treasures at Boston Museum
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Loading... - Manu Anttila
- 07 Apr 2022
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An exquisite ancient Greek earring, now housed at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, still dazzles its admirers fully 2,300 years after it was expertly crafted from pure gold. And it is in good company at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, which opened new galleries devoted to Greek art this year.
The ancient Greek earring, depicting Nike, the goddess of Victory, resplendent in gold wings and headdress and driving her two-horse chariot, still has wheels that actually still turn, more than two millennia after it was created.
The expressions on her horses’ faces are still clearly visible, and the delicate golden reins that Nike is using to control them are amazingly still extant. More than 100 individual pieces of gold were used to make the one surviving earring, which was created around the years 350-325 BC.
Ancient Greek earring among countless treasures at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts
Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, located on the historic city’s Huntington Avenue, houses many treasures from Ancient Greek as well as Egyptian and Mediterranean history.
Home to exhibits ranging from an architrave relief from the Temple of Athena in Assos to an oval gemstone, exquisitely faceted to reveal the goddess Kassandra, the ancient Greek and Roman art galleries house some of the most important collections of Greek objects anywhere in the United States.
Major renovations of Behrakis Wing of the MFA
The exhibit space has been totally reimagined by the Museum, with a refurbishment and rearrangement of its displays. Christine Kondoleon, the George D. and Margo Behrakis Chair for the Art of Ancient Greece and Rome; Phoebe Segal, the Mary Bryce Comstock Curator of Greek and Roman Art; and Laure Marest, the Cornelius and Emily Vermeule Assistant Curator for Greek and Roman Art, were in charge of this ambitious multiyear project.
A major renovation and reinstallation of four galleries at the heart of the Museum’s George D. and Margo Behrakis Wing for Art of the Ancient World, is now underway. The galleries will display nearly 500 objects ranging from the beginnings of Greek art (about 1,100 BC) through the fall of Constantinople in the 15th century and into the present day. Read More...
