TEXTS AND REMAINS
Drawing on their knowledge of ruins and written sources from antiquity, two figures spread the Olympic message: respectively, Émile Gilliéron and Michel Bréal. Gilliéron, who moved to Athens in 1876, taught painting at the palace of King George I of Greece (reigned 1863-1913) and worked as an archaeological draughtsman at the country's major excavation sites. Named to the committee for commemorative Olympic stamps, he used antiquity as inspiration for the imagery of the modern Olympic Games.
Relying on sources from ancient history, philologist and education theorist Bréal invented the marathon race, thus becoming the 'father' of a modern sport practised the world over. Bréal also imagined the original sports trophy: a silver cup, awarded to the winner of the first marathon (on display in the next room).
COVER OFTHE COMMEMORATIVE
ALBUM OF THE 1896 OLYMPIC GAMES
Retroactively used as the first Olympic
'poster', this cover created by Gilliéron shows a dual personification of Athena and the goddess of Victory represented as a modern Greek woman, in an imaginary structure inspired by the architecture of the Acropolis. The base features The Infant Herakles Strangling the Snakes.
The founder of the ancient Olympic Games, the hero Herakles as an infant, was thus incorporated into the iconography of the modern Games in Athens.
The Infant Herakles Strangling the Snakes
Reduced-size modern copy after an original work by Guglielmo Della Porta from around 1574-1575, held at the Museo di Capodimonte (Naples, Italy).
Black-coloured Carrara marble dust
Official Report of the 1896
Athens Olympic Games Émile Gilliéron: cover drawing
Athens, Beck, 1896-1897, vol. 1
Commemorative edition for the Athens Olympic Games Paper, chromolithograph
The imagery was used for the cover of the Games programme, the 1896 commemorative album and retroactively, the 1896 Games poster.
Study for a programme cover or 'poster': bust of Homer and Acropolis of Athens
Émile Gilliéron
Project for the 1896 or 1906
Olympic Games
Watercolour and ink on paper
In this unfinished work, Gilliéron depicts a classical bust of Homer, placing it on an lonic entablature with the Acropolis of Athens in the back-ground. The artist's creative process here is similar to that of the 1896 poster. The choice of the Greek poet may refer to the Homeric poems recited during the ancient Panathenaic Games in honour of the goddess Athena.
The Soldier of Marathon
After Jean-Pierre Cortot (1787-1843)
Casting: Ferdinand Barbedienne
(1810-1892)
19th century
Reduced-size copy in bronze made by Ferdinand Barbedienne after the Louvre marble (LP 243)
The bronze piece shown here is a copy of the marble work commissioned by the French State and presented at the Salon of 1834 (Louvre, Cour Puget). Copies of this sculpture would be awarded to the victors at the Olympics, as seen in a photograph of the winner of the 1908 marathon in London, carried on a table by his team during a lap of honour. The winner was bound to return this Challenge trophy in time for the next edition of the Games.
Skyphos, known as the 'Lambros Cup': runners and judges or trainers
Attributed to the Camel Painter Boeotia, about 540-520 BC Clay, black-figure technique
Copy of the figured part of the Lambros Cup
Emile Gilliéron
1895
Tracing in black ink with touches of red ink on tracing paper
Alongside the modern cup design by Michel Bréal, this ancient vase, decorated with a racing scene, was also given to the winner of the firs marathon in 1896. loannis Lambro: a Greek antiquities dealer and don was the brother of the historian wh oversaw the communication aroun this new race and Bréal's Cup.
Émile Gilliéron made the drawing of the scene for the press.
'Bréal's Silver Cup'
The first marathon trophy cup, awarded to the victorious Spyros Louis at the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896
Designed by Michel Bréal
Made by an anonymous Parisian silversmith
Paris, 1895-1896
Sterling silver (925%o)
Featuring images inspired by the Marathon marshlands that proved fatal to the Persian invaders in their ancient battle against the Athenians, the silver 'Parisian cup' donated by Bréal for the 1896 marathon is the archetypal sports trophy.
