Olympism: Modern Invention, Ancient Legacy

Euphronios, (signed), Attic red-figure calyx-krater : fight between Hercules and Antaeus, ca, 515-510 BCE, Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Among the cultural events designed to accompany the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris is an exhibition at the Louvre on the creation of the first modern Olympic Games. Visitors will discover how the Games came into being in the late 19th century: the political context of the time, the iconographic sources on which they were based, and how the organisers set out to recreate the sporting competitions of ancient Greece.

The exhibition sheds light on the origins of the world’s largest and most-watched sporting competition. This international event was the brainchild of Pierre de Coubertin and a number of French and Greek luminaries, who were later joined by Swiss draughtsman Émile Gilliéron (1850-1924). Gilliéron trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and was a frequent visitor to the Louvre, where he copied a number of its masterpieces. Having settled in Greece, he was named the official artist of the 1896 Olympic Games and of the 1906 Mesolympics, both held in Athens, for which he designed the winners’ trophies, inspired by discoveries made at the major archaeological excavation sites of the period. Using the latest reproduction techniques of his time, the artist illustrated communication materials – in particular postage stamps and posters – for the newly formed Greek state.