Fresh Elgin Marbles row as Greece accuses British Museum of having ‘zero respect’ with Lily James fashion show

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The British Museum has been dragged right into a contemporary row over the Elgin Marbles after fashions strutted down a runway subsequent to the contested masterpieces.

The London Fashion Week occasion, attended by actor Lily James and Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, noticed items from designer Erdem Moralioglu’s Autumn/Winter 2024 assortment proven off in entrance of the artefacts initially taken by Lord Elgin from the Acropolis in Greece.

Outraged Greek minister of tradition Linda Mendoni stated Saturday’s runway proves that the museum has “zero respect” for the statues, additionally recognized as the Parthenon Marbles, and they need to be returned to their nation of origin.

“By organising a fashion show in the halls where the Parthenon Sculptures are exhibited, the British Museum, once again, proves its zero respect for the masterpieces of Pheidias,” she stated in an announcement.

“The directors of the British Museum trivialise and insult not only the monument but also the universal values that it transmits.”

Dr Mendoni added: “The conditions of display and storage of the sculptures, at the Duveen Gallery, are constantly deteriorating. It is time for the stolen and abused sculptural masterpieces to shine in the Attic light.”

Sources on the museum defended the show, telling the Telegraph that fashion large Dior held a photograph shoot on the Athens landmark the Acropolis in 2021.

Greece has lengthy demanded the return of the historic works, which have been eliminated by Lord Elgin from occupied Athens within the early nineteenth century when he was the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.

Part of the friezes that adorned the two,500-year-old Parthenon temple on the Acropolis, the Elgin Marbles have been displayed on the British Museum in London for greater than 200 years. Most of the remaining sculptures are in a purpose-built museum in Athens.

Rishi Sunak sparked a diplomatic row with Greece after refusing to fulfill its prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, when he in contrast the artefacts’ removing to slicing the Mona Lisa in half.

Lord Frost, who beforehand served as chief Brexit negotiator, informed parliament in November: “I do think that Lord Elgin’s actions possibly were a little murky, but I do think nevertheless our legal case is good. I also think it’s not the point. The point is what we do now rather than what happened in the past.

“I have never personally been so convinced by the moral, artistic and cultural arguments for the position we take. I think the Parthenon Marbles are a special situation and we should try and find a special solution.”

Cautioning in opposition to a mortgage to Athens which “keeps the issue and the arguments alive”, he pressed for a everlasting settlement with the formation of a brand new Anglo-Greek cultural partnership to the profit of each nations.

He added: “They aren’t just random museum exhibits. For as long as they are not seen as a whole they are less than the sum of their parts.”