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The Search for Alexander: An Exhibition
Nicholas Yalouris, Manolis Andronikos et al.
The Search for Alexander is the catalog of the landmark 1980–82 traveling exhibition that brought the treasures of ancient Macedon to American audiences—many for the first time. Organized by the National Gallery of Art with Greece's Ministry of Culture, the show gathered some 173 objects in marble, gold, silver, bronze, and ivory from the fourth and third centuries BC, including spectacular finds from the royal tombs at Vergina that Manolis Andronikos had recently excavated—among them a gold funerary casket and oak-leaf wreath thought to belong to Philip II, Alexander's father. The catalog matches full-color plates to essays by leading Greek and American scholars on Alexander's legacy, Macedonian history, and the Vergina discoveries, with a foreword by J. Carter Brown. It's both a record of a blockbuster and a serious primer on the art of Alexander's world. For anyone drawn to classical antiquity, archaeology, or the reach of Alexander's legend, it's a rewarding volume.
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The book
The Search for Alexander: An Exhibition is the catalog of the touring show that opened at the National Gallery of Art in Washington in November 1980 and traveled the United States into 1982. Published by the New York Graphic Society in Boston, it presents 173 objects with color plates and scholarly essays.
The subject
The exhibition centered on Macedon in the age of Philip II and Alexander the Great, and above all on the royal tombs at Vergina, excavated by Manolis Andronikos in 1977—a discovery that transformed understanding of Macedonian art and may have held the remains of Philip himself.
How to read it
As catalog and introduction together. The essays—by Nicholas Yalouris, Katerina Rhomiopoulou, Andronikos, and others—give real scholarly grounding, while the plates convey the wealth and craftsmanship of the finds.
For more context
Read alongside Andronikos's own writings on Vergina and general histories of Alexander and the Hellenistic world.
Sources
- Type
- Exhibition catalog
- Author / Maker
- Nicholas Yalouris, Manolis Andronikos et al.
- Publisher
- New York Graphic Society (NYGS)
- Place of publication
- Boston
- Year
- 1980
- ISBN
- 0-8212-1108-0
- Shelf
- History
- Location
- Maine