Benaki Museum, Μουσείο Μπενάκη, Athens, Greece In a beautiful white neo-classical house near the Greek Parliament and government offices, there lies a vast collection of beautiful and fascinating objects which show off the glory of Greek life through the ages. This is not a state museum, underfunded and showing the need for investment, but a fine example of what all…
Museum of Ancient Art and Ludwig Collection, Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig, Basel, Switzerland Recently, Sister-Chickpea asked me why I’d never ended up writing up a post about the Basel Museum. Honestly, it’s because I’ve had such a backlog of posts to write, I’d forgotten about it. Then I found out that they were closing many of the galleries to…
Museum of Fine Arts, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon, France Knowing that Lyon is one of France’s most culturally significant towns, I had high hopes for its Museum of Fine Art. The museum is housed in an important former abbey, which has its origins in the 6th century. In 1659, the abbess Anne de Chaulnes began construction of the Royal Abbey…
…continued from Part Two… Near East A small but interesting selection of objects from the Near East starts our exploration of the ancient world – with a brief detour to the 14th century for a cute bowl from Antioch. Ancient Egypt The museum has an unexpectedly fascinating collection of Egyptian objects – I could have spent longer looking, but it…
The Museum of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities, Medelhavsmuseet, Stockholm, Sweden Clearly if a town has a museum dedicated to the ancient world, I’m there. And I’ll probably be there for a long time. And I was at the Mediterranean Museum for much longer than I expected – and still didn’t see the entire collection. I totally missed the Islamic section,…