BE L GRAVI A RE S I DE NT S J OURNA L 015

The Belgravia Residents Journal reviews the latest art offerings in the area
THE BEST AND THE REST
Guide
The Art
Henry Hopwood-Phillips strays to Mayfair to see if Kallos Gallery lives up to its name
A
s I stroll up to the burnished copper front of
Kallos Gallery on Davies Street, I curse myself
for letting my classics knowledge slip. In the
ofce Id been mocked by colleagues for claiming kallos
was a catch-all Greek term for goodness. Oh there was
nothing really to laugh at, Dr Liz Sawyer, the gallerys
director of events, assures me. The Greek phrase hoi kaloi
te kagathoi combines beauty and moral goodness in a
similar way to how we say the great and good today.
As my pride slowly re-inates, I realise we are
standing by a Parthian stag rhyton (a stag-shaped drinking
horn) of the 1st century. With gold leaf details and garnets
for eyes, its beauty hits me about the same time as the air
conditioning does. Made by itinerant Greek craftsmen in
the local style of Hellenised Parthia, its musculature at the
front, frozen taut in the hunt, is in such perfect proportion
to the drinking horn that the outrageous rear development
almost looks natural.
A young team leads the new gallery. As well as Liz,
there is Dr Glenn Lacki, the gallery director. Both have
marinated in classics for most of their lives. I ask the latter
why he thought about going into business in the rst
place. A very long DPhil! he admits. I met the Baron at
Oxford and taught him Latin for several years. Over dinner
one night he told me about his gallery plans. How could
I refuse? The Baron of course refers to Lorne Thyssen-
Bornemisza, third in a prominent line of Swiss-German-
Hungarian collectors, and the founder of Kallos.
The Baron got into collecting antiquities about
15 years ago. He probably has the worlds greatest
collection of Roman coins, Lacki tells us. I marvel at
the lack of specie. Although there are strong players in
Roman, Byzantine, Persian and other elds because there
are so many that, to use the Barons words, sh from
the same pond when it comes to Greek works, there are
actually very few trying to specialise in its extraordinary
pieces, Lacki explains, hence the gallerys concentration
on this area.
One is as 10,000 to me if that one is the best,
Heraklitus wrote, and it forms the keystone of Kallos
philosophy. Lacki tells me how the Baron refuses to let the
bar drop, not once, not for anything; although his approach
can be a little too perfectionist. Sometimes he complains
about missing pieces. Now, if we want to wait around
for an intact bronze of Aphrodite at her bath, we may be
waiting a long time! Lacki exclaims.
This is a eld which only appreciates. Each passing
year there are fewer top-end and well-provenanced pieces
on the market. Its like a list of endangered animals. Once
theyre gone, they are gone forever, Lacki reminds me
soberly. This plays out in the markets. Antiquities were,
for instance, one of the best performing assets sold out of
the British Rail Pension Funds art investments.
This is because there is something special about the
timelessness of an antiquity, Sawyer remarks. You are a
custodian of a piece of history, pieces that have been chosen
as the best by past generations in an unbroken chain. Yet the
heaviness, the gravitas of that art is tempered by the fact that
anybody can appreciate it. You dont need a doctorate to love
that dinos over there it was a mixing bowl for wine at parties.
The classics are about reconnecting with an eternal nature,
about being part of stories that are bigger than us.
I couldnt have put it better myself.
14-16 Davies Street, W1K 3DR, 020 7493 0806
(kallosgallery.com)
From top: Black-gure
Dinos, circa 540-20 BCE;
Bronze Geometric Horse
Votive, circa 750-30 BCE