07/07/2008 01:48:00
The Royal Academy of Arts will be exhibiting a rare and impressive collection of Byzantium Art from October this year.
As part of the collection, entitled "Byzantium: 330 - 1453", the London gallery will host the famous Antioch Chalice, believed for many years to be the Holy Grail, the cup used by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper.
Scheduled to be held from October 2008 to March 2009, the exhibition promises to be one of the most fascinating and intriguing of recent years, with officials stating that this could be "the last time" these objects are displayed in the same collection.
Robin Cormack, the show's curator and a professor at the Courtauld Institute, said, "The objects are now old, fragile and difficult to transport. I really think you will never see these objects together again."
The exhibition will also hope to reverse prevailing negative attitudes towards Byzantium, which existed in the territories surrounding the Mediterranean Sea from 330 AD to 1453, when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks.
Mr Cormack added: "We hope to put together a new view of Byzantium for the 21st century. We want to show that 1000 years is not continual decline."
This will be the first exhibition of Byzantium Art in Britain in 50 years, and will be held in collaboration with the Benaki Museum in Athens. The Antioch Chalice will be on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
The Royal Academy of Arts was founded in 1769 - 16 years after the British Museum, who last week announced its highest visitor figures since it started maintaining records.