Chicago is one of the few cities in the world with three collections of Egyptian antiquities. The earliest of the collections was formed at the Art Institute of Chicago.^[1] In 1890 it received its first Egyptian antiquity, an ushabti (cat. 42), from Amelia B. Edwards, a tireless advocate for Egyptian archaeology who, in 1882, founded the Egypt Exploration Fund (EEF).^[2] Supported through subscriptions, this British-based group financed the work of archaeologists, primarily W. M. Flinders Petrie. In return, the subscribing institutions received a share of antiquities granted annually by the Egyptian Antiquities Service.^[3] An EEF report from 1897 commented: “Museums find in Dr. Petrie an inexhaustible mine, he having removed 180 cases of ‘objects’ from Koptos, 300 from Naquada, and 160 from Thebes; Philadelphia giving £150, Chicago £51, and thus securing a lion’s share from so leonine a yield.”^[4]1

Charles L. Hutchinson (see fig. 1), then president of the Art Institute of Chicago, was an early officer of the American branch of the EEF and a strong advocate for ancient Egyptian art.^[5] In 1892, he and his friend and museum trustee Martin A. Ryerson traveled to Egypt where they purchased 232 objects—including pottery and stone vessels, copper alloy figurines, shabtis, reliefs, canopic jars, amulets, jewelry, and small-scale statuary—from dealers Panayotis Kyticas and Émile Brugsch in Cairo, and Mohammed Mohassab and Mohareb Todros in Luxor.^[6]
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Much of this eclectic collection, which represented a broad cross section of Egyptian material culture, was displayed in the museum’s original building at Michigan Avenue and Van Buren Street. In 1894 the objects were moved a few blocks away to the present building on Michigan Avenue, where the Egyptian artifacts, along with classical antiquities, were exhibited in Room 32 on the upper floor (figs. 2–5).^[7]
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Figs. 2–5

That same year, Hutchinson and Ryerson returned to Egypt with letters of introduction to “responsible agents and dealers,” including the Reverend Chauncey Murch of Luxor.^[8] In an arrangement, the terms of which are unclear today, Murch loaned the Art Institute more than a thousand objects, including 667 scarabs and seals that were later purchased by the museum with funds provided by Hutchinson and Henry H. Getty.^[9] Many items from this group are represented in this catalogue.^[10] With these additions, the Art Institute’s Egyptian holdings were regarded as being of “great rarity and value, sufficient, with the loans of Mr. Murch, to form a collection respectable in quantity, and more than respectable in quality.”^[11]4

At about the same time, two other Chicago institutions joined the field of Egyptian antiquities: the Columbian Museum of Chicago (founded in 1893 and renamed the Field Columbian Museum in 1894; today’s Field Museum) and the University of Chicago (founded in 1890).^[12] Edward E. Ayer, the first president of the Field Columbian Museum, had wide-ranging interests, primarily the cultures of Native American peoples. To broaden the Field’s collection, he visited Egypt in 1894, although he expressed his lack of knowledge about Egyptian material culture, writing: “I do not suppose that any grown man ever came to Egypt so ignorant of everything that is Egyptian as I am.”^[13] Ayer relied almost entirely upon the expertise of Émile Brugsch in Cairo, from whom Hutchinson and Ryerson had purchased two years before, buying more than seven hundred objects with little apparent strategy other than avoiding obvious fakes.^[14]5

The first Egyptian objects were acquired by the University of Chicago in 1894. James Henry Breasted (see fig. 6), the first Egyptologist in America, served as the curator of Egyptology for the Haskell Museum when it opened in 1896. He was to become America’s premier Egyptologist, and he would also play major advisory roles at the Art Institute and the Field Museum. Breasted was a philologist and historian; his goal was to obtain artifacts that reflected the rise of Egyptian civilization for use in teaching at the university.^[15] In 1894–95 on his honeymoon and his first trip to Egypt, Breasted bought a range of modest artifacts. Those purchases were augmented by objects from the EEF, in particular a great amount of pottery that was important for establishing the sequence of Egyptian history.6

The three institutions continued to acquire through the EEF. The annual distribution of objects from the fund was often unpredictable; it could include things that fit within each institution’s vision, or not. Some subscribers actively communicated with Petrie about what they wanted. The EEF’s 1886–87 annual report recorded: “Mr. Le Page Renouf, Keeper of the Egyptian Department of the British Museum, preferred monuments calculated to throw additional light upon the philology and history of ancient Egypt, whereas objects of artistic interest were preferred by the Trustees and Director of the Museum of Fine Arts at Boston.”^[16] In contrast, there is no evidence that any of the Chicago institutions expressed their specific desires to Petrie. As a result, they received a broad cross section of objects, rather than ones that fulfilled any specific collecting agenda.7

Breasted rapidly became the spokesman for the Art Institute’s Egyptian interests. His “Report on Egyptian Antiquities” in the museum’s 1896 annual report was critical of the arrangement of the scarabs from the Murch collection, noting that they “were found in hopeless confusion” but that his work resulted in them being “now neatly mounted in chronological order in the new large case provided for them.”^[17] In the following year’s annual report, the Art Institute’s director William M. R. French reported that Breasted and museum curator George Corliss “have substantially completed the arrangement, numbering, and cataloguing of the Egyptian collection.”^[18] In 1899 the Egyptian works were moved to a main floor gallery on the north side of the building (fig. 5).^[19]8

The Art Institute continued to rely upon Breasted throughout the early 1900s. In 1909 French wrote to him: “We have a small collection of Egyptian objects in our storeroom, some of which were condemned by you, and others approved. If you could happen in some day, I think you could separate the ‘sheep’ and the ‘goats’ in this collection very quickly. We should like to put those that are good on exhibition, and dispose of the others.”^[20]9

The following year, Hutchinson and Ryerson made the last of their trips to Egypt, visiting dealers in Cairo and Luxor as well as making purchases directly from the Antiquities Service.^[21] The new acquisitions necessitated a reorganization of the Egyptian display. Again, French called upon Breasted: “As you know, Mr. Hutchinson is much interested in the arrangement of the Egyptian Collection. We have made changes in the room, and the collection is at present broken up. Mr. Hutchinson has said that he desires to retire a considerable portion of the objects. I do not see how this can be done without your assistance.”^[22] His earlier request that Breasted sort the “‘sheep’ and the ‘goats’” resulted in a presentation of the growing Egyptian collection in its own gallery on the north side of the building.^[23] The 1912 installation was very archaeological in nature, probably reflecting both Breasted and Hutchinson’s involvement in the EEF; it included “thirty swinging frames” that displayed recent plans and views of sites reproduced from the Fund’s reports.^[24]10

In 1913, however, the trustees of the Art Institute voted to suspend their financial support of the EEF.^[25] That same year, in a letter to T. Eric Peet, museum president Hutchinson clarified the collection’s focus: “In making the collection at The Art Institute, our first consideration is the artistic value of the object… . We are not seeking to make a large collection of Egyptian antiquities at The Art Institute but rather a small one, that shall illustrate the art of ancient Egypt.”^[26] But the museum was not totally opposed to acquiring archaeological materials, for in 1917 an exchange “of certain antiquities owned by the Museum which are not now on view” was arranged with the University of Chicago for “typical objects in prehistoric pottery.”^[27]11

In 1919 Breasted established the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, and traveled throughout the Near East, scouting sites where the newly formed institute could excavate, and also buying objects for the university’s Haskell Museum.^[28] Several months before the expedition departed, Art Institute director George William Eggers wrote to Breasted: “He [museum president Hutchinson] expressed a query … concerning the possibility of acquiring additional Egyptian objects for the Art Institute in London… . I am wondering how long you are planning to be abroad. You know the Art Institute would feel a little lost if it did not keep track of your whereabouts!”^[29] Once in Egypt, Breasted recognized a special opportunity, writing to Hutchinson:12

I think that I have never been quite so busy before in all my life and I have seen some fairly busy times. I have spent a great deal of time on the Art Institute purchases, and it has been a great pleasure to do so, for I have secured you some very beautiful things. I have been through the entire stocks of the leading dealers in Cairo, chiefly Blanchard, Kyticas, Tano, Nahman and Kelekian… . I feel however that I am in duty bound to let you know that the present opportunity to secure more such material will never return again, and that it would be very wise to seize the opportunity while it is still ours… . There is therefore a body of material here in Cairo, which will never be available again and which would give the Art Institute at fair prices a very beautiful group of sculpture, which would much enrich your collections.^[30]13

Breasted suggested that the Art Institute double the $5,000 the trustees had allotted for acquisitions.^[31] The opportunities that he described were so enticing that on December 29, 1919, Hutchinson sent a telegram (fig. 7) instructing Breasted to “spend ten thousand dollars more.” During the trip, Breasted bought fifteen important objects for the Art Institute, many of which are featured in this catalogue (cats. 1, 7, 10, 12–17, 27, 43).
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Breasted’s correspondence with Hutchinson at this time reflects a new emphasis on building collections that illustrated the diversity and artistic merits of Egyptian material culture. In contrast to the objects he bought for the Oriental Institute, most of which are of historical or philological interest, the artifacts he secured for the Art Institute were things of intrinsic beauty—stelae, sculpture, and fine-quality reliefs—all of which illustrated the canons of Egyptian art.15

Upon his return in 1920, Breasted was appointed Honorary Curator of Egyptian Antiquities at the Art Institute.^[32] As early as 1915, he and Thomas George Allen, an Egyptologist at the Oriental Institute, had started to catalogue the Art Institute’s Egyptian collection in order to supply labels for the galleries.^[33] The trustees allocated $1,800 for a handbook that was to appear by 1922, the same year that “mortuary objects and tomb reliefs lately purchased for the museum by Dr. Breasted in Egypt and the examples of Egyptian art” were placed in a large gallery on the west side of the building overlooking Michigan Avenue that had previously been devoted to classical antiquities.^[34] A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (fig. 8) appeared in 1923 under the sole authorship of Allen, and to date it is still the only comprehensive work on the collection.^[35] Breasted died in 1935. Thereafter, Allen had little direct involvement with the Art Institute, although in the early 1940s he was consulted on loans from the Art Institute to the University of Chicago.^[36]16

The Egyptian collection continued to be housed in two galleries on the west side of the museum through the 1930s (fig. 9).^[37] In 1941 the smaller gallery (Room 9) was emptied.^[38] Some of the objects were moved to storage while others were transferred to the Oriental Institute. By 1950 nearly eight hundred works had been moved to the University of Chicago. But interest in the collection was not completely dormant, for in 1956 a smaller group of objects, including Egyptian antiquities and casts, was located in what a departmental memo called the “Egyptian Room on the Ground Floor.”^[39] At some later date, this material was moved to storage. In the meantime and over the years, the terms of the transfers—whether loans or gifts—to the Oriental Institute had been forgotten and the objects were registered into its collection, creating confusion among registrars and researchers as the university loaned items to other museums.^[40]17

The 1950s was a difficult time for Egyptian collections in general, as interest in the material waned. The collection at the Art Institute was off view. In 1970, the Field Museum even considered disposing of its Egyptian holdings, “retaining a few choice pieces as ‘anthropological.’”^[41] Interest revived in the mid-1970s with the success of The Treasures of Tutankhamun exhibit at the Field Museum (cosponsored by the University of Chicago), which reminded museum directors of Egyptian material’s appeal to the public. In the 1980s the Field Museum worked with researchers at the university to open its anthropologically focused Inside Ancient Egypt galleries. The Oriental Institute continued to present its holdings in a highly academic setting until 1999, when a new Egyptian gallery, designed to be educational yet more accessible, opened. This renewed interest in Egyptian art was also evident at the Art Institute, which showcased highlights of its Egyptian and classical collections in McKinlock Court in 1994 (figs. 10a–b). 18

An issue of Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies devoted to the Egyptian and classical collections was published to accompany the new installation, and an innovative interactive program, “Cleopatra: A Multimedia Guide to the Ancient World,” was introduced (fig. 11).^[42] For this exhibition, the Art Institute recalled fifty objects from the Oriental Institute. In 1996 the Art Institute recalled additional objects and formally gifted the remainder of the loaned holdings to the university, ensuring that the entire collection would remain in Chicago.
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The Art Institute’s Egyptian material was again placed in storage in 2012, when the museum prepared to open the Mary and Michael Jaharis Galleries of Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Art. Although it was not on view, the collection continued to be active under the long-term supervision of Mary Carol Greuel, who served as the Elizabeth McIlvaine Assistant Curator of Ancient Art in the Department of Ancient and Byzantine Art until her untimely death in 2017. During this time, Egyptian material was included in temporary exhibits such as When the Greeks Ruled Egypt (2014; fig. 12). The entire collection was also surveyed by Oriental Institute Egyptologist Emily Teeter and graduate students from the University of Chicago in preparation for making it available online. Finally, the two mummified individuals in the Art Institute’s care were CT-scanned, adding to scholarship (fig. 13).
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In 2017 the creation of the first ancient Egyptian art curatorial staff position and appointment of Ashley F. Arico heralded a new era for the collection. While the collection remained primarily off view, Egyptian artifacts were increasingly featured in public programs, and a small number of objects were added to the Hellenistic art gallery.^[43] Administration of the collection was transferred in 2020 to the newly redefined Department of Arts of Africa that oversees artworks created on the African continent across space and time. Under its oversight, Life and Afterlife in Ancient Egypt (figs. 14a–d)—a new permanent installation dedicated to the arts of ancient Egypt—opened in February 2022, inviting the public to experience pharaonic artifacts at the Art Institute of Chicago anew.^[44]21

Figs. 14a–d