Ashmolean Museum

History

Broad Street

Beaumont Street

Renovations

Collections

• Drawings by Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci
• Paintings by Pablo Picasso, Giambattista Pittoni, Paolo Uccello, Anthony van Dyck, Peter Paul Rubens, Paul Cézanne, John Constable, Titian, Claude Lorrain, Samuel Palmer, John Singer Sargent, Piero di Cosimo, William Holman Hunt, and Edward Burne-Jones
• The Alfred Jewel
• Watercolours and paintings by J. M. W. Turner
• The Messiah Stradivarius, a violin made by Antonio Stradivari
• The Daisy Linda Ward bequest in 1939 of 96 still life paintings, including works by Clara Peeters, Adriaen Coorte, and Rachel Ruysch
• The Pissarro Family Archive, donated in the 1950s to the Ashmolean, consisting of paintings, prints, drawings, books, and letters by Camille Pissarro, Lucien Pissarro, Orovida Camille Pissarro, and other members of the Pissarro family
• Arab ceremonial dress owned by Lawrence of Arabia
• A death mask of Oliver Cromwell
• The Crondall hoard, a rare set of Anglo-Saxon gold coins discovered in 1828
• A substantial number of Oxyrhynchus Papyri, including Old and New Testament biblical manuscripts
• Over 30 pieces of Late Roman gold glass roundels from the Catacombs of Rome, the Wilshere Collection is the third largest collection after the Vatican and British Museum.
• A collection of Posie rings.
• An extensive collection of antiquities from Prehistoric Egypt and the succeeding Early Dynastic Period of Egypt
• The Parian Marble, the earliest extant example of a Greek chronological table
• The Metrological Relief, showing Ancient Greek measurements
• The ceremonial cloak of Chief Powhatan
• The lantern that Gunpowder Plot conspirator Guy Fawkes carried in 1605
• The Minoan collection of Arthur Evans, the biggest outside Crete
• The Narmer Macehead and Scorpion Macehead
• The Kish tablets
• The Sumerian Kings List
• Near Eastern tablets collection, second largest in the UK; mainly recovered by the Oxford-Field Museum Expedition to Kish, Iraq
• The sole surviving Pococke Kition inscription, used by Jean-Jacques Barthélemy in his decipherment of the Phoenician language
• The Abingdon Sword, an Anglo-Saxon sword found at Abingdon south of Oxford
• The Dalboki hoard of Thracian artefacts, central Bulgaria
• The Scythian antiquities from Nymphaeum, Crimea
• The Shrine of Taharqa

• In 2024 the museum acquired Fra Angelico's The Crucifixion with the Virgin, Saint John the Evanelist and the Magdalen, from the early 1420s.
• In 2017 the museum acquired a group portrait by William Dobson painted in Oxford around 1645, during the English Civil War. The group in the painting are Prince Rupert, Colonel William Legge and Colonel John Russell. The painting was acquired for the nation through the Acceptance in Lieu scheme, administered by Arts Council England.
• In 2017 the museum acquired a Viking hoard that was discovered near Watlington in South Oxfordshire in 2015. It is the first large Viking hoard discovered in Oxfordshire, which once lay on the border of Wessex and Mercia. The hoard contains over 200 Anglo-Saxon coins, including many examples of previously rare coins of Alfred the Great, King of Wessex and his less well-known contemporary, King Ceolwulf II of Mercia.
• In 2015 the Ashmolean raised the money needed to acquire a major painting by J. M. W. Turner. With lead support from the Heritage Lottery Fund, a grant from the Art Fund, and a public appeal, the fundraising target was met to secure Turner's only full-size townscape in oils: The High Street, Oxford. The painting was accepted by the nation through the Acceptance in Lieu scheme.
• In October 2014 the Ashmolean acquired a painting by John Constable titled Willy Lott's House from the Stour. The painting was accepted by the nation through the Acceptance in Lieu scheme. The farm building depicted in the painting is also seen from a different angle in The Hay Wain, painted 1821 and now at the National Gallery.
• In October 2014 the Ashmolean acquired a collection of historic English embroideries which was given to the museum by collectors Micheál and Elizabeth Feller. The gift comprises 61 pieces which span the whole of the seventeenth century.
• In late 2013, art historian and collector Michael Sullivan bequeathed his collection of more than 400 works of art to the museum. The collection, which includes paintings by Chinese masters Qi Baishi, Zhang Daqian, and Wu Guanzhong, was considered one of the world's most significant collections of modern Chinese art. The museum has a gallery dedicated to Sullivan and his wife Khoan.
• In 2013 the museum was given the sculpture Taichi Arch by Taiwanese artist Ju Ming, which was installed on the museum's main forecourt. It was given to the museum by the Juming Culture and Education Foundation in memory of art historian and collector Michael Sullivan.
• In 2012 the museum was left a 500-piece collection of gold and silver objets d'art, including many pieces of Renaissance silverware, assembled by the antique dealer Michael Welby.
• In 2012 the museum acquired Édouard Manet's Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus, painted in 1868, after a public campaign to raise £7.83 million while a temporary export bar was placed on it by the RCEWA The campaign received £5.9m from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and a grant of £850,000 from The Art Fund.

  Collections gallery

Arundel Marbles

Major exhibitions

• Labyrinth: Knossos, Myth and Reality: This exhibition opened at the Ashmolean in February 2023 and will be open until late July 2023.

• Pre-Raphaelites: Drawings & Watercolours: This exhibition, initially shown for 5 weeks in 2021, was re-mounted in 2022 for a longer run, opening in July. It is drawn from the Ashmolean's own collection of Pre-Raphaelite drawings and watercolours.
• Pissarro: Father of Impressionism: Open from February until June 2022, this exhibition included artworks drawn from the Ashmolean's collections as well as international loans, spanning Camille Pissarro's entire career.
• Tokyo: Art and Photography: Open from July 2021 until January 2022, this exhibition included artworks from the Ashmolean's collection as well as loans from Japan and new commissions by contemporary artists. It included woodblock prints by Hokusai and Hiroshige, photography of Moriyama Daido and Ninagawa Mika.
• Pre-Raphaelites: Drawings & Watercolours: Open in May and June 2021, this exhibition was drawn from the Ashmolean's own collection of Pre-Raphaelite drawings and watercolours. The exhibition was curated by British art historian Christiana Payne.
• Young Rembrandt: Open from August until November 2020, this exhibition was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and featured more than 120 of Rembrandt's paintings, drawings and prints from international and private collections. It focused on the first decade of Rembrandt's work, from 1624 to 1634, and included his early paintings Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem, Self-Portrait in a Gorget, Rembrandt Laughing, Judas Repentant, Returning the Pieces of Silver, Portrait of Jacques de Gheyn III, and History Painting. The exhibition was the subject of a BBC television documentary, in its 2020 Museums in Quarantine series.
• Last Supper in Pompeii: Open from July 2019 until January 2020, this exhibition explored what the people of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii loved to eat and drink. Many of the objects, on loan from Naples Museum and Pompeii, had never before left Italy.
• Jeff Koons at the Ashmolean: Open from February until June 2019, this exhibition featured 17 major works by the American artist Jeff Koons, 14 of which had never been on display in the UK before. They included some of his most well-known series such as Equilibrium, Banality, Antiquity and his recent Gazing Ball paintings and sculptures. In the galleries of the museum, where the collections range from prehistory to the present, Jeff Koons's work was 'in conversation' with the history of art and ideas which has been his focus over the past four decades. The exhibition was curated by Koons and Norman Rosenthal.
• Spellbound: Magic, Ritual & Witchcraft: Open from August 2018 until January 2019, this exhibition explored the history of magic over eight centuries. On display were 180 objects from 12th-century Europe to newly commissioned contemporary artworks.
• America's Cool Modernism: O'Keeffe to Hopper: Open from March until July 2018 this major exhibition of works by American artists in the early 20th-century included over 80 paintings, photographs and prints, and the first American avant-garde film, Manhatta. Many of the paintings had never before travelled outside the US.
• Imagining the Divine: Art and the Rise of World Religions: Open from October 2017 until February 2018 this exhibition explored Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism, and was the first to look at the art of these five world religions as they spread across continents in the first millennium CE.
• Raphael: The Drawings: Open from June 2017 until September 2017 this exhibition brought together over a hundred works by Raphael from international collections and aimed to transform public understanding of Raphael through a focus on the immediacy and expressiveness of his drawing.
• Degas to Picasso: Creating Modernism in France: Open from February 2017 until May 2017, and featuring works by Matisse, Manet, Chagall, Braque, Delacroix, Renoir, Metzinger, Degas, Léger and Picasso, this exhibition told the story of the rise of Modernism through works from a private collection that had never been seen in Britain before.
• Power and Protection: Islamic Art and the Supernatural: Open from October 2016 until January 2017, this was the first major exhibition to explore the supernatural in the art of the Islamic world. The exhibition included objects and works of art from the 12th to the 20th century, from Morocco to China, which have been used as sources of guidance and protection in the dramatic events of human history. These include dream-books, talismanic charts and amulets.
• Storms, War and Shipwrecks: Treasures from the Sicilian Seas: Open from June until September 2016, this exhibition explored the roots of Sicily's multi-cultural heritage through the discoveries made by underwater archaeologists – from chance finds to excavated shipwrecks. The exhibition also featured what has been described as a "flat pack" Byzantine church interior, intended for assembly at its destination, with marble items raised from a wreck off the southeast coast of Sicily in the 1960s by archaeologist Gerhard Kapitan.
• Andy Warhol: Works from the Hall Collection: Open from February until May 2016, this exhibition featured over a hundred works, by Andy Warhol, from the Hall Collection, plus loans of films from The [Andy Warhol Museum], Pittsburgh. Curated by Sir Norman Rosenthal, the exhibition spanned Warhol's entire output, from iconic pieces of the 1960s Pop pioneer to the experimental works of his last decade.
• Elizabeth Price: A Restoration: Open from March until May 2016, this two-screen video installation by British artist Elizabeth Price was a newly commissioned work in response to the collections and archives of the Ashmolean and Pitt Rivers museums, in partnership with the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, and funded by the 2013 Contemporary Art Society Award. The main focus was the records of Arthur Evans's excavation of the Cretan city of Knossos.
• Drawing in Venice: Titian to Canaletto: Open from October 2015 until January 2016, this exhibition featured a hundred drawings from The Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the Ashmolean, and Christ Church, Oxford. It was based on new research tracing continuities in Venetian drawing over three centuries, from around 1500 down to the foundation of the first academy of art in Venice in 1750. The exhibition also featured 20 works on paper and canvas by contemporary artist Jenny Saville, produced in response to the Venetian drawings in the exhibition.
• Great British Drawings: An exhibition open from March until August 2015 showing more than one hundred British drawings and watercolours from the Ashmolean's collection, spanning three hundred years.
• An Elegant Society: Adam Buck, artist in the age of Jane Austen: Open from July until October 2015 this exhibition explored the work of Adam Buck, Irish Regency era portrait and miniature painter.
• Love Bites: Caricatures by James Gillray: An exhibition in 2015 to mark the 200th anniversary of the death of British caricaturist James Gillray. The caricatures on display were from the collection of New College, Oxford.
• William Blake: Apprentice and Master: Open from December 2014 until March 2015, this exhibition celebrated the work of William Blake.
• Discovering Tutankhamun: a special exhibition, open from July until November 2014, explored Howard Carter's excavation of the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922. Original records, drawings and photographs from the Griffith Institute were on display.
• The Eye of the Needle: English Embroideries from the Feller Collection: a special exhibition, open from August until October 2014, of 17th-century embroideries from the Feller Collection, together with examples from the Ashmolean's own holdings.
• Cézanne and the Modern: a special exhibition, open from March to June 2014, displaying Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings and sketches from the Henry and Rose Pearlman Collection
• Francis Bacon / Henry Moore: Flesh and Bone: a special exhibition, open from September 2013 until July 2014, displaying paintings by Francis Bacon and sculptures and drawings by Henry Moore.
• Stradivarius: a special exhibition, open from June until August 2013, exploring the life and work of Antonio Stradivari. It was the first time twenty-one of his instruments, from guitar to cello to violin, were on display together in the UK.
• Master Drawings: a special exhibition, open from May until August 2013, displaying a selection of the Ashmolean's on western art collection. The exhibition surveyed drawings of all types by some of the biggest names in art history, including Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael, as well as Gwen John, David Hockney and Antony Gormley.
• Xu Bing: Landscape Landscript: a special exhibition of the work of Xu Bing, open from February until May 2013. It was the Ashmolean's first major exhibition of contemporary art.

  Keepers and Directors

Notable people

Current keepers

• Christopher Howgego, Keeper of the Heberden Coin Room
• Mallica Kumbera Landrus, Keeper of Eastern Art
• Liam McNamara, Keeper of Antiquities
• Jennifer Sliwka, Keeper of Western Art

  Former staff

• Michael Metcalf, former Keeper of the Heberden Coin Room
• Joan Crowfoot Payne, archaeologist and Cataloguer of the Egyptian and Nubian collectors
• Jon Whiteley, former Assistant Keeper of Western Art
• Susan Sherratt, former Assistant Curator and Honorary Research Assistant to the Arthur Evans Archive
• Andrew Sherratt, former Assistant Keeper of Antiquities in the Ashmolean Museum
• Catherine Whistler, former Keeper of Western Art

  In popular culture

Books

• The Ashmolean Museum is a minor location within the book Babel, or the Necessity of Violence.

  Comics

• The 21st book in the Belgian comics series Blake and Mortimer, titled The Oath of the Five Lords, centres around a series of burglaries at the Ashmolean and their connection to T. E. Lawrence.

  Television

• The Alfred Jewel was the inspiration for the Inspector Morse episode "The Wolvercote Tongue", in which the museum's interior was used as a set.
• The Ashmolean also figures prominently in several episodes of the successor series Lewis, particularly the episode "Point of Vanishing" where the painting The Hunt in the Forest is a key plot element; the characters visit the painting at the museum and are instructed on its features by an art expert before solving the case.

  Theft

Repatriation of artefacts