Ambassador Grdesic told Hina on the phone that this event promoted Croatia's history as well as archaeological heritage and other pertaining areas, including tourism.
The colloquium called "Study day: The Athlete of Croatia: a bronze youth from the sea" considered the sculpture's recovery from the sea, its conservation, and the place it holds in the history of Greek art, according to the information on the British Museum website.
"The youth seems lost in concentration, but is perhaps not unaware that his beauty will attract admiration. He will be seen in the UK for the first time as a highlight of the exhibition Defining beauty: the body in ancient Greek art," the Museum notes.
The study day was held by the British Museum in collaboration with the Croatian Ministry of Culture and the Croatian Conservation Institute, with the support of the Croatian Embassy in London.
The Croatian Apoxyomenos ("Scraper") is one of the few preserved Greek statues that once decorated Greek shrines and cities. It represents an athlete, caught in the familiar act of scraping sweat and dust from his body with a small curved instrument that the Romans called a strigil. The statue was recovered by divers in the sea near the islet of Vele Orjule near Losinj in the northern Adriatic in 1999. The statue seems to date back to the 2nd or 1st centuries BC from a Greek foundry as a copy of its original created in the 4th century BC.
Restoration on the statue began in October 2000 and was completed in 2006 and since then the statue has been exhibited in Croatia and abroad. This Apoxyomenos sculpture was exhibited in the Louvre from 23 November 2012 to 25 February 2013.
After the exhibition in the British Museum, the statute will "travel" to the John Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles for an exhibition on ancient arts.