What I can see

The National Bank Building houses over 1300 original works by leading painters, sculptors and engravers of the 19th and the 20th century. This is what makes them museum pieces. The collection’s core consists of leading artists of the “Munich School”, such as Nikiforos Lytras, Konstantinos Volanakis, Nikolaos Gyzis and great sculptors such as Ioannis Kossos, Emmanuel Tombros and Thanasis Apartis. There are also many works of the so-called “generation of the ’30s”, such as Nikolaos Chatzikyriakos Gkikas, Spyros Papaloukas, Giannis Tsarouchis, Spyros Vassiliadis, Giannis Moralis, Nikos Eggonopoulos, Giorgos Zoggolopoulos, Giannis Pappas and earlier ones, such as Konstantinos Parthenis and Konstantinos Maleas.

What I can't see

During the 19th century, there were two separate buildings from the 1840s. On the left, was the house of Athens University professor Kyriakos Domnandos, which in 1845 became the property of banker Georgios Stavros and the first bank facility of independent Greece. On the right, was the hotel “Anglia” of Frangiskos Feraldis, which was bought 10 years later for the expansion of the bank. The two buildings had the same number of floors and height, so they were easily merged. They were completely renovated and got a single neoclassical facade, designed by Eugene Trumbe. The first funds of the bank were offered by the Swiss philhellene Jean-Gabriel Eynard.

Info

• Address: 86 Aeolou St.

Bibliography