The Paul and Alexandra Canellopoulos Museum is a

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

of antiquities in

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

. It is situated in the north slope of Acropolis, in the district of

Plaka Pláka ( el, Πλάκα) is the old historical neighborhood of Athens, clustered around the northern and eastern slopes of the Acropolis, and incorporating labyrinthine streets and neoclassical architecture. Plaka is built on top of the residentia ...

(12 Theorias street). Founded in 1976, it houses the collection of Paul and Alexandra Canellopoulos, which started being formed in 1923 and was donated to the Greek state in 1972. The collection features ca. 6500 items of Prehistoric, Ancient Greek, Byzantine and post-Byzantine art, spanning almost six millennia of history (from the Neolithic era to the 19th century).

The buildings

The museum is housed in two buildings, which share a common entrance at Theorias street. The chronologically older building is a neoclassical mansion constructed in 1894 as the residence of the Michaleas family. It has three floors, with beautiful paintings on the ceilings of the upper one. The Michaleas mansion was expropriated by the Greek state in the 1960s-1970s and was restored to permanently house the Canellopoulos collection. In 2007, the New Wing of the Museum was built by the architect P. Kalligas, on the initiative of Alexandra Canellopoulos and the Paul and Alexandra Canellopoulos Foundation. Archaeological excavations conducted prior to the construction of the New Wing brought to light remains of a Late Byzantine house and part of the medieval fortification of Athens (the so-called Rizokastro), which was built in the 13th century. These remains have been preserved in the basement of the New Wing, and are accessible to the public.

The collection

The Paul and Alexandra Canellopoulos collection comprises ca. 6500 items of Prehistoric, Ancient Greek, Byzantine and Post-Byzantine art. They include Neolithic and Bronze Age figurines and vessels, Classical vases, a wide array of metal artifacts (vases, weapons, statuettes, weights, ritual equipment), marble sculpture, jewelry of all periods (gold, silver, bronze, glass), coins, Fayum-style portraits, textiles, manuscripts, early printed editions, and more than 350 icons dating from the 14th to the 19th century. Among them, particularly notable is the large group of

black-figure Black-figure pottery painting, also known as the black-figure style or black-figure ceramic ( grc, , }), is one of the styles of painting on antique Greek vases. It was especially common between the 7th and 5th centuries BCE, although there are ...

and

red-figure Red-figure vase painting is one of the most important styles of figural Greek vase painting. It developed in Athens around 520 BCE and remained in use until the late 3rd century BCE. It replaced the previously dominant style of black-figure vas ...

vases, which depict mythological scenes, rituals and everyday activities of the Archaic and Classical periods. Also important is the large assemblage of Attic

white-ground White-ground technique is a style of white ancient Greek pottery and the painting in which figures appear on a white background. It developed in the region of Attica, dated to about 500 BC. It was especially associated with vases made for ritua ...

lekythoi, which depict funerary scenes imitating the style of Classical large-scale painting. The collection is mostly renowned for the fine series of Byzantine and post-Byzantine icons. Special emphasis is laid on the

Cretan School Cretan School describes an important school of icon painting, under the umbrella of post-Byzantine art, which flourished while Crete was under Venetian rule during the late Middle Ages, reaching its climax after the Fall of Constantinople, becom ...

of painting, which combined elements of the Byzantine tradition with aspects of the European Renaissance. The collection includes excellent works by the Cretan artists Nicolaos Tzafouris, Michael Damaskenos, Emmanuel Lambardos, Frangias Kavertzas, Ieremias Palladas, Victor, and Emmanuel Tzanes.For the icons and other Byzantine and post-Byzantine exhibits, see Skampavias C. - Chatzidakis N. 2007. T''he Paul and Alexandra Canellopoulos Museum: Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Art''. Athens: Paul and Alexandra Canellopoulos Foundation

References

External links

*http://camu.gr *https://pacf.gr/en/collection/themuseum/
Hellenic Ministry of Culture and TourismCity of Athens
{{DEFAULTSORT:Paul and Alexandra Canellopoulos Museum Archaeological museums in Athens Art museums and galleries in Greece