Benaki Museum

This guide to the Benaki Museum in Athens traces Antonis Benakis from a boy in Alexandria hoarding rocks and sponges into a lifelong collector of Islamic textiles, Byzantine icons and Greek folk costume, gathered from bazaars and dealers across Europe, Africa and the Middle East. It follows him settling in Athens in 1926, filling his father Emmanuel's mansion with the collection, and opening it to the public in 1931 with Greece's prime minister at the door. Picture that opening-day crowd spilling out onto the corner just outside.