Among the cultural events designed to accompany the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris is an exhibition at the Louvre. Visitors will discover how and in what political context the first modern Olympic Games came into being in the late 19th century, 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 modern Games, at the initiative of Pierre de Coubertin and of a number of French and Greek luminaries, who helped create the world’s greatest and most-watched sporting event. They were joined by Émile Gilliéron (1850–1924), a Swiss draughtsman who trained at the Beaux-Arts de Paris and frequently spent time copying masterpieces at the Louvre. After settling in Greece, he was appointed the official artist of the 1896 Olympic Games and the 1906 Mesolympics, both held in Athens. In designing the winners’ trophies, he drew inspiration from discoveries made at a number of major archaeological excavation sites where he had previously worked. Using the latest reproduction techniques of his time, he illustrated communication materials (especially postage stamps and posters) for the newly formed Greek state.

Thanks to a special loan from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), the Louvre will exhibit the first Olympic Cup, known as ‘Bréal’s Cup’, designed by French academic Michel Bréal and created by a French silversmith for the winner of the first marathon – a race invented for the modern Olympic Games.

Now, 130 years after this inaugural event, the year 2024 also marks the centennial commemorations of the 1924 Olympic Games, the second hosted by Paris.

As part of the programme of cultural events accompanying the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris, the exhibition will show how, in the name of sport, the disciplines of philology, history, art history and archaeology came together to create this global sporting event.

Exhibition curator
Alexandre Farnoux, Honorary Director of the French School at Athens, Professor of Greek Archaeology and Art History at Sorbonne University;
Violaine Jeammet, Senior Curator in the Department of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities, Musée du Louvre;
Christina Mitsopoulou, Archaeologist at the University of Thessaly, French School at Athens.

THE ANCIENT ROOTS OF MODERN OLYMPISM : A Forgotten Franco-Greek Origin

The exhibition firstly seeks to tell the unknown story of the creation of the modern Olympic Games and to highlight the role played by France, and Paris in particular, well beyond the figure of Pierre de Coubertin, who has garnered the most historical attention. Lesser-known figures – historians and politicians – are introduced, including the likes of Dimitrios Vikelas, Michel Bréal and Spyridon Lambros. In seeking to understand Greek sport through the study of ancient texts and archaeological evidence, these historians and scholars reinvented the competitions of ancient Greece.

With a primary focus on peace as promoted by the practice of sport, the initiatives of the Baron de Coubertin culminated in the inaugural Olympic Congress, organised by the Union of French Sports Associations at Sorbonne University in June 1894. The first Olympic Games were held in Athens in 1896, then in Paris in 1900 as part of the Exposition Universelle.

BRÉAL’S CUP

The historian, linguist and educator Michel Bréal (1832–1915), who lived in Paris and attended the inaugural congress at the Sorbonne, wished to revive the marathon race, drawing from ancient historical sources in an original way. He is the spiritual father of a modern sport that has spread around the globe.

The cup he commissioned to be awarded to the winner of the first marathon, Greek athlete Spyridon Louis, in 1896, has become the most famous Olympic trophy, imbued with historical and symbolic meaning.
Created in Paris by an anonymous silversmith according to Bréal’s instructions, it has never before been exhibited in the city where it was produced.'This elegant Parisian work of art’ (παρισιακόν κομψοτέχνημα), as Spyridon Lambros presented it to the Greek public in the press, is one of the highlights of the exhibition.

The cup was acquired by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) in 2012 and is exhibited at Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC) in Athens.

LOUIS EMMANUEL ÉMILE GILLIÉRON (1850–1924), OLYMPIC ARTIST

Another figure deeply involved in this invention was the Swiss artist Émile Gilliéron père, who moved to Greece in 1876; 2024 marks the centenary of his death. Despite being unknown to the general public, he was employed as a draughtsman by the Greek royal family, and collaborated with numerous Greek and foreign archaeologists working in Greece during this period. Above all, he was the official artist of the 1896 Olympic Games and the 1906 Mesolympics. This exhibition seeks to raise the public’s understanding of the impact of the archaeological discoveries of the period on the modes of communication at the time of the creation of the modern Games.

Based on the study of the studio collection the Gilliéron family recently donated to the French School at Athens, the exhibition presents for the very first time the antiquities that inspired Émile Gilliéron, alongside works produced for the modern Olympic Games, including stamps, posters, postcards, trophies and commemorative objects.

THE MAKING OF OLYMPIC IMAGERY: REWARDING ATHLETES AND DISSEMINATING THE OLYMPIC IMAGE

With his social and professional connections, Émile Gilliéron was a key figure when it came to creating new Olympic iconography.
The field experience he gained through his collaboration with major archaeological excavations (at the Acropolis of Athens, Marathon, Boeotia, Euboea, among others) provided him with ideas and reference models that served as the foundation for this new Olympic iconography. Drawing from his archaeological knowledge, he used a number of reproduction techniques (drawing, casting, electrotyping, lithography, printing, photography, to name a few) to invent trophies and images for state communications, particularly stamps. It was for this event, in fact, that stamps commemorating an athletic competition were issued for the very first time; it also marked the beginning of Olympic philately.

Classical sources were also used to recreate the motions of the sports practiced by the ancient Greeks in order to adapt them to the modern Games.
But modern Olympism as it developed was ultimately a phenomenon specific to the 20th century, bearing little resemblance to the athletic contests of old.