GENEVA.- The Fondation Gandur pour l’Art opened its first traveling exhibition in Japan on 17 April at the Asahikawa Museum of Art, in Hokkaido. The exhibition will run until 21 June before continuing its journey to three more Japanese cities, including Tokyo.

The special loan exhibition, Ancient Egyptian Art and Magic, Treasures from the Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, presents 150 works of art drawn from the Foundation’s archaeological collection, some of which are on view for the first time. The works span the four millennia history of pharaonic Egypt from the predynastic through to the ptolemaic periods.

Jean Claude Gandur, founder and Chairman of the Fondation Gandur pour l'Art, explains: “The objects exhibited were selected for both aesthetic and didactic reasons. As always, our aim is to help the public understand and appreciate the ancient Egyptian civilisation and the significant contribution that civilisations like these have made to our societies.”

The exhibition stresses the central role of magic in furthering our understanding of the nature of ancient Egyptian art. It is organised around three themes: hieroglyphs, materials and colour. All three elements symbolically reinforce each object’s function. Together, the works of art reflect the ancient Egyptian world view of a cosmos in which human beings, animals and plants are harmoniously integrated.

Japan is the third country to host a significant traveling exhibition from the archaeological collection of the Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, after Switzerland and the United States, and before France in June (at the MUCEM in Marseille). The exhibition is accompanied by a bi-lingual catalogue, in Japanese and English, written by Dr Robert Steven Bianchi, chief curator and curator of the archaeology collection of the Fondation Gandur pour l’Art.