Paris – Athens: The Birth of Modern Greece, 1675–1919

This exhibition explores the deep and enduring ties between Paris and Athens across more than two centuries, from 1675 to 1919. Through paintings, sculptures, prints, and historical documents, it charts the cultural, artistic, and political exchanges that gave birth to the modern Greek state and identity.

The show examines how Enlightenment ideals, the Philhellenic movement, and the Greek War of Independence fired the European imagination, inspiring French artists and thinkers while Greek intellectuals and artists drew on Parisian models to forge a new national culture.

From the Grand Tour travellers who sketched ancient ruins to the academically trained painters who defined a modern Greek visual language, the exhibition offers a rich panorama of cross-cultural dialogue spanning the Baroque era, Neoclassicism, Romanticism, and the early twentieth century.