On March 12, visitors to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto will have the rare opportunity to experience Kore 670 — a gift to a goddess, one of the best-preserved and most stunningly beautiful Korai statues from the legendary citadel of the Acropolis of Athens.
The statue will remain on display until September 25.
Celebrating 80 years of Canada-Greece relations, the marble sculpture is on loan to the museum as part of an exchange of iconic objects with the Acropolis Museum in Athens. In exchange, the museum is sending two treasured vases from its Greek collections for display at the Acropolis Museum from June 20 to January 8, 2023.
This work of art has left Greece only a very few times in its 2,500-year history. With Kore 670’s exclusive presentation in Toronto, visitors can enjoy and appreciate this unique piece of art for a short time.
This Kore, or figure of a maiden, created between 520-510 BCE, is considered one of the most important and beautiful of the sculptures from the Acropolis appreciated for its fine detail and preservation. In many places, the statue retains remnants of its once colorfully painted figure, which have largely been worn away by time and the elements.
Kore 670 offers visitors a portal into the history and beauty of ancient Greek art, the tumultuous history of the Acropolis and the birthplace of democracy and an incredible story of discovery.
Kore 670 (“Kore” is Greek for girl) was a gift to the goddess Athena, daughter of Zeus. The many Korai (plural of Kore), which in ancient times adorned the Acropolis of Athens, represent some of the most iconic images in Greek culture and civilization.
In the centuries that passed since the destruction of Athens and the Acropolis in 480 BCE, Kore 670 and 13 other Korai were re-discovered in 1886 when archaeologists were excavating the site.
This installation also invites audiences to reexamine their understanding of white marble sculptures and the appeal of color in the Archaic Age. Unpainted marble has been accepted for centuries as the original and intended appearance of statues. In fact, these sculptures were initially overlaid and adorned with vibrant colors and a Greek sculpture was never thought to be complete until it was painted.
The bright hues of Kore 670 have decomposed over time, but the remaining traces on this sculpture highlights how colorful art was in antiquity.
This installation is sponsored by the Hellenic Heritage Foundation of Canada in recognition of the anniversary of Canada-Greece relations. A podcast produced by HHF will feature a conversation about Kore 670 and its significance to Greek culture.
The podcast will be available for listening on the foundation’s website, the Royal Ontario Museum’s exhibition webpage or via your preferred podcast provider.
ROM Learning is offering resources and activities in support of this presentation. To highlight how color was an integral part of ancient Greek sculpture, there will be an eight-page “Colors of Kore” discovery book, as well as a gallery trail for classrooms and a virtual tour of the Kore 670 installation and other museum galleries made available for audiences.
The Royal Ontario Museum holds Canada’s foremost and comprehensive museum collection of ancient Greek objects consisting of some 7,000 objects, representing one of the largest collections of Greek art in North America, with objects on display in the Gallery of Greece and the Gallery of the Bronze Age Aegean on level three of the museum.
On loan from the Acropolis Museum. Issued by the excavations at the Acropolis of Athens conducted by the responsible service of the Greek State in 1886.
Featured image: Detail (cropped) of Kore 670, profile of face & crown/earring, right side. © Acropolis Museum, photo: Giorgos Vitsaropoulos
