This year, the marble sculpture of a Venus found in Pompeii has been chosen to commemorate women and their importance in the history of art. The Venus, found in 1954 in the so-called Pompeian “Villa of Aphrodite”, and kept in the “secret room” of the Archaeological Museum of Naples, will be exhibited on the ground floor of the Acropolis Museum from March 8 to 28. of May.
Known as ‘Venus in a bikini’, it is a unique piece in which the sculptor used a very white marble of excellent quality. The goddess wears a delicate golden swimsuit that further highlights the whiteness of the raw material “creating a sensation of delicate and soft skin that she wants to touch”, according to the piece described by the Acropolis museum itself. The Olympic goddess, leaning on a column topped by a human figure, puts on her shoes while a little Cupid helps her put on her sandal.
The ‘unexpected’ visit of Venus is part of a series of exhibitions called ‘Temporary and Unexpected Visitors’, through which the Athenian institution will exchange works with other museums around the world to commemorate specific holidays, anniversaries or other relevant events for the culture world.
Aphrodite or Venus, goddess of beauty in Antiquity, is one of the deities that has inspired the most works of art over the centuries, giving us works as beautiful as the one on display starting this Wednesday in the Greek capital.
The Athenian Museum, under the direction of Nikolaos Stampolidis, He has been reshaping the institution’s exhibition discourse for months with the aim of bringing the public closer to the society that built the universal monument of the Acropolis. Within this idea, for a few weeks, you can visit a thematic unit dedicated to the world of work in the Athens of Pericles.
With this exchange initiative, the museum intends to enrich the knowledge and aesthetic experience of visitors while the museum strengthens cultural diplomacy with other international museum institutions.
This Tuesday, representatives of the Vatican and the Archbishopric of Athens signed the final agreement whereby the ‘Fagan Fragments’ become part of the collections of the Acropolis Museum and are reunited with the rest of the sculptural ensemble.