The Audacity - British Museum Wants To Showcase More Exhibits From Greece

As Greece continues to pressure the British Museum to return the Parthenon marbles, Athens's Museum of Cycladic Art is reported to be reluctant to loan a major antiquity to the British Museum for an upcoming exhibition.

HellasFrappe says, give us back the PARTHENON MARBLES and then we will talk again about lending out our antiquities to your museum.

A spokesperson for the British Museum said in an interview with the Art Newspaper, that “we have requested to borrow" a piece, but that the Greek museum had yet to respond one way or the other.

The classical sculpture exhibition, titled “Defining Beauty: the Body in Ancient Greek Art," is scheduled to open March 6 and run through June 22.

The controversy between the two countries heated up last month when the British Museum unexpectedly lent one of the Parthenon marbles, a headless statue of the river god Ilissos, to the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg—the first time one of the Parthenon marbles had left the United Kingdom since entering the British Museum collection in 1816.

It would appear that denying a loan to the British Museum is Greece's way of getting back at the institution, despite a previously cordial curatorial relationship between the two museums, Artnet News reported.

If Greece does not fulfill the request soon, it will be difficult for the British Museum to install the piece in the exhibition as currently planned.

Sources: enikos.gr, Artnet News, Ta Nea