ATHENS – Greek Culture Minister Lina Mendoni renewed her objections to the British Museum after the institution hosted a fundraising dinner inside the Duveen Gallery, which houses the Parthenon Sculptures.
“The British Museum once again showed provocative indifference,” said Mendoni, who argued that the safety and dignity of the artifacts should be the museum’s main concern, according to Le Figaro. She added that using the marbles as dinner décor was “offensive to cultural goods and endangers the exhibits themselves,” reported BFMTV.
The black-tie “Pink Ball” brought about 800 guests—including Mick Jagger, Naomi Campbell, Alexa Chung, Manolo Blahnik, Steve McQueen, Kristin Scott Thomas and London Mayor Sadiq Khan—to dine at candle-lit tables set among the sculptures, reported Arab News. Tickets cost £2,000, and the evening continued with an auction offering rare items, noted Le Figaro.
Proto Thema described neon pink lighting that bathed the gallery, with social-media photos showing chairs pressed against the marbles and champagne glasses resting on ledges. The Greek outlet questioned whether the arrangement guaranteed adequate protection.
The dinner reignited the long dispute over ownership of the sculptures. Carved between 447 and 432 BCE under the direction of Phidias, the friezes once stretched roughly 160 meters around the Parthenon. About 80 meters are in London, 50 meters are in the Acropolis Museum, one block is in the Louvre and smaller sections are held by other European institutions, wrote Stern. Greece maintains the artifacts were removed in 1802 during what Athens calls a “plunder” by Lord Elgin, while the United Kingdom argues they were legally acquired. A 1963 law bars the British Museum from deaccessioning holdings.
Talks on a possible arrangement have continued for years. In December 2022 the museum’s chair, former chancellor George Osborne, spoke of lending some sculptures to Athens in exchange for Greek loans, reported Arab News, but BFMTV said negotiations produced no tangible results.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said he was “firmly convinced” the marbles would eventually return to Athens, according to Le Figaro. Inside Greece, Mareva Grabowski-Mitsotaki, the prime minister’s spouse, branded the gala “misguided” and “inappropriate,” reported Proto Thema.
The Culture Ministry stated that it had repeatedly condemned dinners, receptions and fashion shows in museum spaces where monuments are exhibited and would object whenever the 2,500-year-old sculptures served as a fundraising backdrop on British soil, recorded by Ναυτεμπορική.
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