This month’s TTL (Third Thursday Lecture), held by the Sainsbury Insitute, examines the context of Gregorios Manos’ impressive collection in The Museum of Asian Art of Corfu.
The Museum of Asian Art of Corfu is a museum in the Palace of St. Michael and St. George in Corfu, Greece, founded by Gregorios Manos. It was the first and only museum in Greece dedicated to the art of Asia.
Gregorios Manos (1850-1928), the Greek ambassador to Austria, was the envisaged and founder of the Museum of Asian Art. He lived in France for a long time after retiring and gathered a collection of approximately 9,500 items of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese art.
At the time in Greece, many new museums were created to display Greece’s patrimony and introduce different cultures to Greece. However, Manos managed to organise a museum in the small town of Corfu and not in Athens was significant.
Manos offered his entire collection to the Greek state in exchange for a small stipend and the building of a Museum of Sino-Japanese art, where he would reside and work as the first director. The Greek government originally suggested the Old Parliament Building in Athens. Still, limitations forced the nation to reconsider Manos’ original proposal – the palace of St Michael and St George in Corfu, which became the official home of the collection in 1919.
Artistic collections include Japanese printed pictures, Chinese porcelain, and Indian sculptures in bronze and other materials, plus wood carvings. Amazingly, the museum’s collection of Japanese art consists of about 6,200 items, mainly from the Manos bequest (1927) and Hatzivassiliou bequest (1974). The Museum’s collection covers all Japanese art periods from 10500 to 300 BC to the 19th century AD. Including Katsushika Hokusai’s pieces of ukiyo-e (such as ‘Snowy Morning at Koishikawa’ and ‘South wind, Clear sky’ from the series ‘Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji), suit of Samurai armour with a yokohagi do type cuirass from Edo period and ceramics from the Kofun period etc.
After listening to Despina Zernioti’s (Director, Corfu Museum of Asian Art) fantastic talk about the museum’s history and fascinating collection, I would love to see the collection in person.