Full Name: Alexander, Christine Anne
Other Names:
- Christine Alexander
- Christine Anne Alexander
- Christine A. Alexander
Gender: female
Date Born: 10 November 1893
Date Died: 24 December 1975
Home Country/ies: Italy and United States
Career(s): art historians and curators
Overview
Art historian and Museum Curator; Alexander completed her undergraduate studies at Maryville College in 1913, with a Bachelor of Arts in Greek and a minor in Classical Archaeology. She later received her Master’s degree in archaeology and comparative philology in 1915 from Cornell University, where she completed her thesis under Eugene Plumb Andrews (1866–1957), written largely in Greek. Following her time at the university, she worked during World War I in the British Field Service stationed in Alexandria and later worked with the American Consular Service in Romania.
Alexander joined the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1923, where she served under Gisela M.A. Richter. She succeeded Richter as Head of the Department of Greek and Roman Art in 1948 and was succeeded by Dietrich von Bothmer. Alexander remained in the position until her retirement in 1959. During her years, she was involved in the study, publication, and acquisition of Greek, Roman, and Etruscan art for the museum’s collection. Following her retirement, Alexander worked as an adviser to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond.
Alexander’s scholarship is recorded through museum publications and collaborative writing with other curators. She co-authored The Paintings from Boscotrecase (1962) with Peter von Blanckenhagen, which was later revised and republished as The Augustan Villa at Boscotrecase (1990). Alexander was responsible for much of the reconstruction of decorative wall systems discussed in the writing. She also authored several books, such as Aretine Relief Ware (1943), and Augustan Art: an Exhibition Commemorating the Bimillennium of the Birth of Augustus (1938).
In addition, Alexander contributed to interpretations of Roman wall paintings, including theories concerning lost literary sources for mythological panels. As a curator at the MET, she was deeply involved in the acquisition of important Etruscan objects, including black-figured amphorae, a Villanovan bronze cauldron, red-figure ceramics, bronzes, and a terracotta cinerary urn.
Consulted as an expert on classical items, Alexander had a recorded interaction with Missouri politician Charles H. Morgan (1842–1912) regarding the return of a stolen object from a Greek museum. She later died on December 24, 1975, leaving no immediate family behind.
Selected Bibliography
- Jewelry: The Art of the Goldsmith in Classical Times as Illustrated in the Museum Collection. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1928.
- and Richter, Gisela M. A. Augustan Art: An Exhibition Commemorating the Bimillennium of the Birth of Augustus. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1938.
- Arretine Relief Ware. Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum: United States of America, fasc. 9. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, fasc. 1. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1943.
- and von Blanckenhagen, Peter Heinrich, and Georges Papadopulos. The Paintings from Boscotrecase. Heidelberg: F. H. Kerle, 1962.
Sources
- “Christine Alexander, Curator of Greek Art at Met, Is Dead.” New York Times, December 27, 1975, 20.
- De Puma, Richard, and Christopher Lightfoot. Etruscan Art in the Metropolitan Museum. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art in association with Yale University Press, 2013.
- Vogeikoff-Brogan, Natalia. “Recalling a Museum Theft.” From the Archivist’s Notebook, April 21, 2022.
- Weber, Paige Eileen. Temporality on the Roman Wall: A Re-evaluation and Virtual Reconstruction of Cubiculum 19 in the Villa at Boscotrecase. BA Thesis, John Cabot University, Rome, 2023.
Archives
[Christine Alexander] Cornell Graduate School Files, Rare and Manuscript Collection