Eternal Egypt was the first major exhibition to take an art historical approach to the great culture of Egypt, and the first in this country to be drawn solely from the British Museum’s outstanding collection of Egyptian antiquities. Both renowned masterpieces and little-known treasures provided an overview of the richness and scope of this premier collection of Egyptian art. The four periods in which ancient Egyptian history is divided (the Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom, the New Kingdom, and the Late Period) formed the underlying structure of the curatorial premise for Eternal Egypt— the evolution of the figural tradition over the long duration of thirty-five centuries.

Selected by Edna R. Russmann, Curator in the Department of Egyptian, Classical, and Ancient Middle Eastern Art at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, in conjunction with W. V. Davies, the British Museum’s Keeper of Egyptian Antiquities, the nearly 150 objects in the exhibition spanned the full range of pharaonic history, from shortly before the First Dynasty, about 3100 B.C., to the Roman occupation of the fourth century A.D. The exhibition was accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue including a major essay by the guest curator on such topics as archaism, portraiture, and stylistic innovation in Egyptian art; an essay on the formation of the British Museum’s collection of Egyptian antiquities by Harry James, former Keeper of Egyptian art at the British Museum; and entries on individual works of art in the exhibition.

Exhibition Itinerary: The Toledo Museum of Art (March 1–May 27, 2001); Wonders: Memphis International Cultural Series (June 28–October 21, 2001); the Brooklyn Museum of Art (November 23, 2001–February 24, 2002); the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (April 12–July 7, 2002); the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor (August 10–November 11, 2002); the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (December 22, 2002 –March 16, 2003); the Field Museum (April 26–August 12, 2003); the Walters Art Museum (September 21, 2003 –January 18, 2004); the Royal Ontario Museum (February 28–June 6, 2004); the Royal British Columbia Museum (July 10–October 31, 2004); and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (January 27–May 22, 2005).