Demetrios Zeno Pierides

Demetrios Zeno Pierides gave the Pierides family collection of Cypriot antiquities, 2,236 objects when it was inventoried in June 1972, to a foundation he established; the 1985 catalogue dates the gift to June 1974^1,2. The Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique already called it the "Collection du Musée de la Fondation Piéridès" in its review of 1974⁶.

He was born in 1937⁷, the son of Zeno D. Pierides (1900-1967) and Theodora Z. Pierides, and had a sister, Lukia D. Cleridou. He studied economics and political science in Lausanne¹. The 1985 catalogue adds that he founded a collection of Modern Greek art in Athens and that, with his mother and sister, he collected Cypriot folk art¹. His business activities had their headquarters in Famagusta until the town was occupied in 1974¹. He wrote in 1973 that the Swedish Consulate General had been in the family since 1895 and that he had represented Sweden since 1964 as Consul and since 1967 as Consul General; the 1985 catalogue gives 1968 for the second post^1,2.

Inheriting the collection

His father's death in 1967 left him responsible for the collection¹. Vassos Karageorghis, who wrote the introduction to the 1985 catalogue, describes the situation: whole cemeteries in Turkish Cypriot villages were being looted and the Department of Antiquities could not enforce the law, so it "was decided that it would be advantageous to pursue a policy by which Greek Cypriots were allowed to buy antiquities looted by Turkish Cypriots". In Karageorghis's words, "Dhimitrios Z. Pierides, in consultation with the Department of Antiquities, bought a large number of antiquities, thus saving them for the country", and he gathered information on provenance when he could. Karageorghis adds that Pierides also bought Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age pieces on foreign markets "after they had been illicitly exported from Cyprus"¹.

In the history of the collection printed in the 1973 catalogue, Pierides says that the provenances given there were those of pieces he had acquired himself in recent years. He lists additions of the previous three years: rare Early and Middle Bronze Age pottery, Cypro-Archaic pottery, Cypro-Classical statues and Attic vases².

How the purchases have been read

Writing in 2014, Samuel Andrew Hardy describes a "silent accord" between 1963 and 1973 under which the state tolerated Greek Cypriot purchases of antiquities looted in the Turkish Cypriot enclaves; a 1973 amnesty ended it and legalised the collections³. Hardy quotes the 1985 catalogue's statement that Pierides acted in consultation with the Department of Antiquities, and notes that Karageorghis, in 1999, named this collection among the important ones formed under the accord³.

Hardy works from published figures. Without an inventory from before 1972 he finds it impossible to say how much Pierides added between 1967 and 1972, but from the 1972 total and later ones he calculates that about 964 objects came in between June 1972 and June 1974. Of the 102 pieces in the 1973 catalogue with a recorded find-spot, he counts 99 as probably looted. Of 16 pieces he judges probably looted during the conflict years, ten came from Turkish Cypriot places and six from Greek Cypriot ones³. These are Hardy's inferences from catalogue data, and he does not charge Pierides with any offence.

The Foundation

The 1985 catalogue says he gave the collection in June 1974 to the Pierides Foundation, "which he himself established", so that it could be endowed and could enrich the collection together with the Department of Antiquities¹. The Greek text of the same catalogue gives 1973 for the gift¹. The invasion and the occupation of Famagusta in 1974 halted his plans for a while; afterwards he financed excavations by the Department of Antiquities, lectures, international symposia, publications and scholarships. His mother kept the collection after 1974¹.

Karageorghis wrote the 1973 catalogue and was the first-named author of the 1985 one, which accompanied an exhibition of the collection at the Academy of Athens^1,2. By 2000 Pierides was president of the Foundation, and in that capacity he lent Lucie Bonato two unpublished letters of Melchior de Vogüé from its archives⁴.