[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/GettyImages-1233565055.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tGeorge Osborne, chairman of the British Museum, has expressed hope that a deal can be struck to share the Parthenon Marbles between Athens and London, despite the two-centuries-long diplomatic feud.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI\u2019m still optimistic that we can reach an agreement,\u201d Osborne told reporters in Athens on Tuesday. \u201cIf everyone enters into it with the spirit of we\u2019re not going to get everything we want, as is always the case with a successful agreement, then there\u2019s a deal to be done.\u201d <\/p>\n
\n\tThe Parthenon Marbles, made between 447 and 432 BCE by the Greek sculptor Phidias, depict gods and processions in marble relief panels, sculptures, and friezes. They\u2019re also known as the Elgin Marbles, after the Scottish nobleman Lord Elgin, who was the British ambassador to Constantinople. Elgin removed the sculptures from the Acropolis in Athens in 1801, while Greece was under Ottoman occupation. He later sold the sculptures to the British government, which has housed them in the British Museum ever since.<\/p>\n
\n\tGreece has sought the marbles\u2019 return since gaining independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1832, arguing that Elgin had no legal grounds to remove them. British officials, meanwhile, have cited the British Museum Act 1963, which prohibits the museum from deaccessioning objects in its collection, as justification for retaining the sculptures. Tensions between the two countries have escalated in recent years, fueled by the opening of a dedicated museum for the marbles in Athens and reports of leaks and other preservation concerns in the British Museum\u2019s galleries.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI very much hope we can come to some arrangement whereby the Parthenon sculptures that are in London can be seen in Athens but they have to be shared,\u201d Osborne said Tuesday. \u201cI know that\u2019s not the position of everyone in Greece, and I understand that and respect that, but that is our position, and so if we want to make progress, it has to be in that spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tOsborne\u2019s comments follow a September op-ed by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis published in the Guardian<\/em>, in which he took issue with British Museum director Nicholas Cullinan\u2019s characterization of France\u2019s loan of the Bayeux Tapestry as \u201ca very compelling example of international partnership.\u201d Cullinan had suggested that a similar model of \u201creciprocal exchange\u201d could be applied to the Parthenon Marbles.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cNobody would seriously contemplate cutting what survives of the tapestry in two and displaying half in London and half in Bayeux, and claiming this was an adequate way to understand it,\u201d he writes, \u201cYet that is exactly what happened to the Parthenon sculptures.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tOsborne, a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, has been at the forefront of negotiations between the British Museum and Greece. In 2023, the London institution confirmed that it had been in talks with the Acropolis Museum, saying it was close to finalizing a deal under which the sculptures would return to Greece over time as part of a cultural exchange. The agreement never materialized. Greek Culture Minister Lina Mendoni told reporters days later that Greece would not accept a deal affirming the United Kingdom\u2019s ownership claim. Instead, she proposed an exchange that would ensure treasures from Greek antiquity, including objects of comparable prestige to the Parthenon Marbles, would remain on display in London.<\/p>\n \n\tWorld leaders are set to convene at the EU-UK summit in Brussels next month. Speaking at a conference at the University of Athens on October 6, Mitsotakis suggested that discussions on diplomatic ties between the European Union and the United Kingdom, which voted to leave the bloc in 2016, would involve the British Museum dispute.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThe Parthenon sculptures will be part of this debate. This is not just an issue for Greece, it\u2019s an issue for Europe,\u201d Mitsotakis said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/diplomatic-tensions-british-museum-parthenon-marbles-george-osborne-1234802403\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/GettyImages-1233565055.jpg?w=1024″] George Osborne, chairman of the British Museum, has expressed hope that a deal can be struck to share the Parthenon Marbles between Athens and London, despite the two-centuries-long diplomatic feud. \u201cI\u2019m still optimistic that we can reach an agreement,\u201d Osborne told reporters in Athens on Tuesday. \u201cIf everyone enters into it with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2199714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2199714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2199714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2199714\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2199714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2199714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2199714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}