Elgin Marbles are put alongside Rodin’s sculptures by museum
THE CONTROVERSIAL Elgin Marbles will go back under the spotlight at the British Museum in a new exhibition which compares them with Rodin’s sculptures.
The Marbles, or Parthenon sculptures, have long been the subject of dispute over their home in the British Museum, where they have been on permanent public display since 1817.
Greek governments have called for their return to Athens since the 1980s and have even enlisted top lawyer Amal Clooney to help their campaign. Now a new exhibition at the British Museum will see 18 of the treasures removed from the space where they are on permanent display to be shown alongside Rodin’s work. Rodin And The Art Of Ancient
Greece will show how the French artist was inspired by the Marbles, which Lord Elgin acquired from the ruins of the Parthenon in Athens, to bring to Britain about 200 years ago.
Sculptor Auguste Rodin (18401917) regularly travelled to London to sketch the sculptures and once said that “in my spare time I simply haunt the British Museum”.
The exhibition, opening at the end of April, will show that Rodin’s much-loved work The
Kiss evokes two female goddesses, originally on the Parthenon temple, where the Elgin Marbles once stood.
Both the Parthenon goddesses and Rodin’s marble Kiss are carved from a single block of stone, with “one figure melting into another”. Rodin And The Art Of Ancient
Greece runs from April 26 to July 29 at the British Museum.