The Art of Adornment: Greek Jewellery from the 17th to 19th Centuries
Hellenic Museum, Melbourne
From August 26, 2016

More info: http://www.hellenic.org.au/the-art-of-adornment

The latest collection from the Benaki Museum to travel to Australia’s Hellenic Museum tells a tale of more than just the wearing of jewellery. Opening Friday 26 August, 2016, The Art of Adornment: Greek Jewellery from the 17th to 19th Centuries features items that were said to bring the wearer good luck, enhance fertility, and ward off evil spirits for protection and prosperity.

The collection, that spans 300 years, features over 90 exquisite and intricate objects which highlight the artistry involved in jewellery making throughout this period as well as portraits in the gallery showing how these items were worn.

The exhibition has been divided geographically or thematically into seven main categories. They include: Greek islands; Jewellery and silverware for men; Asia Minor; Central Greece; Thessaly; Epirus; Northern Greece: Macedonia and Thrace.

Items in the collection include: a pair of earrings with pendants in the shape of caravels from Patmos, Dodecanese dated 18th c.; an amulet with a relief representation of St George on horseback slaying the dragon from the 19th c.; a head-cover ornament made up of silver, gilt details, corals, glass gems from Asia Minor dated 19th c.; a necklace consisting of three Austrian coins hung from a filigree chain from Thessaly dated second half of the 19th c.; marriage crowns decorated with flowers from Asia Minor dated second half of 19th c.; and a belt buckle decorated with polychrome enamel from Thessaly dated early 19th c.

After Shakespeare
15 July 2016 – 15 January 2017
Noel Shaw Gallery, Baillieu Library, The University of Melbourne

More info: http://library.unimelb.edu.au/museumsandcollections/whats_on/exhibitions/current-items/after-shakespeare

To mark the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death, the Baillieu Library exhibition After Shakespeare explores the author’s posthumous legacy, both in terms of writers who imitated or adapted his works (that is, literally wrote ‘after’ his style) and in terms of Shakespeare’s reputation and significance in the four centuries after his demise, with a particular emphasis on how his work has been received in Australia.

Bringing together for the first time two of only five known Australian copies of the Second Folio of Shakespeare’s works (1632), a unique promptbook for a slated Gold Rush era performance of Antony and Cleopatra at Melbourne’s Theatre Royal in 1856, and numerous production artefacts and ephemera, After Shakespeare offers a rare glimpse of important Shakespeariana from the University of Melbourne, the State Library of Victoria and the Melbourne Theatre Company.