FROM GREECE TO COPENHAGEN. THE ITINERARIES OF TWO RELIEFS

Opening on May 25, 2023 is the pop-up exhibition “From Greece to Copenhagen. The itineraries of two reliefs”, resulting from an interdisciplinary research project carried out at the Thorvaldsen Museum in collaboration with Gabriella Cirucci, Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow at the University of Copenhagen (SAXO Institute).

The exhibition will take an unusual look at the ancient sculptures that were in the possession of Bertel Thorvaldsen and are now displayed in his museum by considering what happened to them before and after entering his collection of antiquities. 

Within this ensemble, the exhibition features two works in particular, whose itinerary started in ancient Greece: a fragment from a votive relief with the god Asclepius and a miniature relief in the form of a small temple with the goddess Cybele. 

“From Greece to Copenhagen” aims to actualize the different times and places when and where these works were active as well as to reactivate the different relations among people, other objects, and spaces of which they were - and are - part. 

The challenge of tracing the complex itineraries of these works was addressed through a set of interdisciplinary tools, by combining archaeology, art history, history, and natural sciences. Researchers and professionals of different disciplines and sectors based at different Institutions in Denmark and abroad worked side by side in this project.

The exciting new findings of this collaborative effort are now presented to the public in “From Greece to Copenhagen”, with the wish that the fruitful synergy created by this project may lead to new research and discoveries in the future.

Gabriella Cirucciʼs profile

Gabriella Cirucci is Research Fellow at the Saxo Institute of the University of Copenhagen, where she is carrying out the project “REFRAME. Greek Funerary and Votive Relief Reused for Display in the Ancient Mediterranean”, funded by the European Commission under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions. Her research addresses the itineraries of Greek tombstones and votive reliefs over time and space, to understand why and how these artefacts were cared for and preserved as antiques in different times and cultural contexts, from antiquity right through to our times. After obtaining her PhD in Classical Archaeology from the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Gabriella Cirucci has been Research Fellow at the Scuola Normale, at the Getty Research Institute, and at the University of Leiden. Her main research interests are in Greek and Roman art and archaeology, with a particular focus on marble sculpture and its afterlife, both in antiquity and in the post-antique period.