“To Live Forever: Art and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt“, a traveling show orgnized by the Brooklyn Museum  will be exhibited at its home from Feb 2010 to May 2010 before it take the trip again to another five places. Mummy rules! The show, when exhibited at Columbus Museum of Art, brought record-high visitors.

Objects on view include the Bird Lady—one of the oldest preserved statues from all Egyptian history and a signature Brooklyn Museum object; a painted limestone relief of Queen Neferu; a gilded, glass, and faience mummy cartonnage of a woman; the elaborately painted shroud of Neferhotep; a gilded mummy mask of a man; and a gold amulet representing the human soul.

Besides individual magnificent objects, the exhibit explores the afterlife belief in two interesting perspectives:  The democratization of after-life belief system (from Pyramid text to coffin text to book of the dead) and the funeral practices across different social class strata. The accompany catalogue by Dr. Ed Bleiberg is both enticing and scholarly.

On the other hand, the Met has quietly postponed the exhibition “Duncan Phyfe, America’s Legendary Cabinetmaker” by another year. It was originally planned to be shown in Nov 2009 and was pushed to April 2010. Now the official website says it is scheduled to open in Spring 2011. An American furniture scholar who teaches part-time in NYU commented its final fate is unknown and it is possible it may not happen. I guess the toolbox of Duncan Phyfe will stay in New York Historical Society a little bit longer.