Ashmolean Museum

Ashmolean Museum
Oxfordshire
Main Museum Entrance
Type:	University Museum
Location
Location:	51°45’19"N, 1°15’36"W
City:	Oxford
History
Address:	Beaumont Street
	Built 1841-1845
For:	University of Oxford by Charles Cockerell
	University Museum
	Neo-Classical
Information
Website:	www.ashmolean.org

The Ashmolean Museum (in full the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology) stands on Beaumont Street in Oxford. It is the world's first university museum, having been founded in 1677. The current, Palladian museum building was built for it in 1841-1845.

Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University of Oxford in 1677. The museum reopened in 2009 after a major redevelopment. In November 2011, new galleries focusing on Egypt and Nubia were also unveiled. In May 2016, the museum opened new galleries of 19th-century art.

History

The collection includes that of Elias Ashmole, which he had collected himself, including objects he had acquired from the gardeners, travellers, and collectors John Tradescant the elder and his son, John Tradescant the younger. The collection included antique coins, books, engravings, geological specimens, and zoological specimens—one of which was the stuffed body of the last dodo ever seen in Europe; but by 1755 the stuffed dodo was so moth-eaten that it was destroyed, except for its head and one claw.

The museum opened on 24 May 1683, with naturalist Robert Plot as the first keeper. The first building, which became known as the 'Old Ashmolean', is sometimes attributed to Sir Christopher Wren or Thomas Wood.

Engraving of the Ashmolean c. 1845

After the various specimens had been moved into new museums, the "Old Ashmolean" building on Broad Street was used as office space for the Oxford English Dictionary. Since 1924, the building has been established as the 'Museum of the History of Science', with exhibitions including the scientific instruments given to Oxford University by Lewis Evans (1853–1930), amongst them the world's largest collection of astrolabes.

The present building dates from 1841–45. It was designed by Charles Cockerell in a classical style and stands on Beaumont Street. One wing of the building is occupied by the Taylor Institution, the modern languages faculty of the university, standing on the corner of Beaumont Street and St Giles' Street. This wing of the building dates from 1845–48 and was also designed by Charles Cockerell, using the Ionic order of Greek architecture. The main museum contains huge collections of archaeological specimens and fine art. It has one of the best collections of Pre-Raphaelite paintings, majolica pottery, and English silver.

The archaeology department includes the bequest of Arthur Evans and so has an excellent collection of Greek and Minoan pottery. The department also has an extensive collection of antiquities from Ancient Egypt and the Sudan, and the museum hosts the Griffith Institute for the advancement of Egyptology. Charles Buller Heberden left £1,000 to the University, which was used for the Coin Room at the museum.

In 2012, the Ashmolean was awarded a grant of $1.1m by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to establish the University Engagement Programme or UEP. The programme employs three Teaching Curators and a Programme Director to develop the use of the Museum's collections in the teaching and research of the University.

Renovation

Renovated Ashmolean central atrium

Ashmolean Rooftop Terrace

The interior of the Ashmolean has been extensively modernised in recent years and now includes a restaurant and large gift shop.

In 2000, the Chinese Picture Gallery, designed by van Heyningen and Haward Architects, opened at the entrance of the Ashmolean and is partly integrated into the structure. The gallery was inserted into a lightwell in the Grade 1 listed building, and was designed to support future construction from its roof. Apart from the original Cockerell spaces, this gallery was the only part of the museum retained in the rebuilding. It houses the Ashmolean’s own collection, but is also used from time to time for the display of loan exhibitions and works by contemporary Chinese artists. It is the only museum gallery in Britain devoted to Chinese paintings.

The Sackler Library, incorporating the older library collections of the Ashmolean, opened in 2001 and has allowed an expansion of the book collection, which concentrates on classical civilization, archaeology and art history.

Between 2006 and 2009, the museum was expanded to the designs of architect Rick Mather and the exhibition design company Metaphor, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. The $98.2 million rebuilding resulted in five floors instead of three, with a doubling of the display space, as well as new conservation studios and an education centre. The renovated museum re-opened on 7 November 2009.

On 26 November 2011, the Ashmolean opened to the public the new galleries of Ancient Egypt and Nubia. This second phase of major redevelopment now allows the Museum to exhibit objects that have been in storage for decades, more than doubling the number of coffins and mummies on display. The project received lead support from Lord Sainsbury’s Linbury Trust, along with the Selz Foundation, Mr Christian Levett, as well as other trusts, foundations, and individuals. Rick Mather Architects led the redesign and display of the four previous Egypt galleries and the extension to the restored Ruskin Gallery, previously occupied by the Museum Shop.

In May 2016, the museum opened new galleries dedicated to the display of its collection of Victorian art. This development allowed for the return to the Ashmolean of the Great Bookcase, designed by William Burges, and described as "the most important example of Victorian painted furniture ever made.".

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  Ashmolean Information Desk 2014
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  Ashmolean Entrance March 2015
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  Ashmolean Forecourt September 2014
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  Ashmolean Forecourt April 2014
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  European Ceramics Gallery

Collections

Rive des Esclavons (Turner, c. 1840)

Detail from a fragment of Egyptian wall painting: Akhenaten and Nefertiti with their daughters

Taichi Arch on the museum's forecourt

Highlights of the Ashmolean's collection include

• 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 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
• 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 3rd 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 conspiracist Guy Fawkes carried in 1605
• The Minoan collection of Arthur Evans, the biggest outside Crete
• The Narmer Macehead and Scorpion Macehead
• The Kish tablet
• 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

Recent major bequests and acquisitions include:

• In 2017 the museum acquired a Viking hoard that was discovered near Watlington 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 (871–899) and his contemporary, King Ceolwulf II, the last King of the Mercians (874–879).
• 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: an 1810 painting 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 Valley Farm). 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 Ashmolean 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 2013 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. The bequest will be displayed in a new gallery.
• In 2012 the museum acquired Édouard Manet's Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus, painted in 1868, after a public campaign to raise £7.83million while a temporary export bar was placed on it by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art.

Collections gallery

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  'The Brighton Pierrots', painted 1915 by Walter Sickert
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  The Alfred Jewel
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  'Music' by Edward Burne-Jones
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  The "Two Dog Palette" from Hierakonpolis
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  The Messiah Stradivarius violin
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  'Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus', by Edouard Manet
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  The Narmer Macehead
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  'Studies of the Heads of two Apostles and of their Hands', by Raphael
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  'The Hunt in the Forest' by Paolo Uccello
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  Statue of Sobek, the crocodile god, from the pyramid temple of Amenemhat III
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  'Acme and Septimius', by Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton
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  The 'Apotheosis of Germanicus', a copy after an antique Cameo painted in 1626 by Peter Paul Rubens
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  The Return of the Dove to the Ark, by Sir John Everett Millais
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  A Greek tragic mask dating to the 1st century BC or 1st century AD.
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  'A lady singing', gouache painting with gold on paper 1740-45, Rajasthan, artist unknown
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  'Jeanne Holding a Fan', an oil on canvas painting by Camille Pissarro, c.1874
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  'The Holy Family with St John the Baptist', brush and brown wash on panel by Michelangelo
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  Tombstone, the doctor Claudius Agathemerus and his wife Myrtale, from Rome, about AD 100
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  A death mask of Oliver Cromwell
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  Portrait of John Ruskin by John Everett Millais
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  The Mantle of Chief Powhatan
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  The Abingdon Sword
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  'The Annunciation', attributed to Paolo Uccello
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  'Restaurant de la Sirène, Asnières', by Vincent van Gogh
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  A Garden in Montmartre by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
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  'Young Englishwoman', a costume study by Hans Holbein the Younger
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  A self-portrait by Samuel Palmer
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  A coin of Domitianus II
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  Egyptian Mummy Portrait
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  The Virgin and Child, by Bernardino Pintoricchio
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  Maharaja Bakhat Singh of Nagaur. ca. 1735
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  Early Bronze Age Cycladic art figurine, 2800–2300 BC.
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  The Kish tablet

Broadway Museum and Art Gallery

In 2013, a museum was opened in the 17th-century "Tudor House" at Broadway, Worcestershire, in the Cotswolds, in partnership with the Ashmolean Museum. In 2017 the museum became known as the Broadway Museum and Art Gallery. The collection includes paintings and furniture from the founding collections of the Ashmolean Museum, given by Elias Ashmole to the University of Oxford in 1683, and local exhibits expand upon elements of the timeline of the village.

In literature and popular culture

• Philip Pullman's novel The Subtle Knife, in the His Dark Materials series, references the Ashmolean Museum. The two main characters, Lyra and Will, pretend to be looking for the Ashmolean in order to fool a pair of police officers because half of the story is based in Oxford.
• In Ghost Stories of an Antiquary within the short story the Mezzotint, M.R.James makes reference to the 'Ashleian Museum' which is clearly a reference to the Ashmolean Museum.
• Comic: 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.
• The musical Where's Charley? (1948), written by Frank Loesser based on the play Charley's Aunt, includes a song called "The New Ashmolean Marching Society and Students' Conservatory Band".

Television

• The Alfred Jewel was the inspiration for the Inspector Morse episode "The Wolvercote Tongue" (1988), 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 (ca. 1470) 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

View of Auvers-sur-Oise by Paul Cézanne

On 31 December 1999, during the fireworks that accompanied the celebration of the millennium, thieves used scaffolding on an adjoining building to climb onto the roof of the Ashmolean Museum and stole Cézanne's landscape painting View of Auvers-sur-Oise. Valued at £3 million, the painting has been described as an important work illustrating the transition from early to mature Cézanne painting. As the thieves ignored other works in the same room, and the stolen Cézanne has not been offered for sale, it is speculated that this was a case of an artwork stolen to order.

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Ashmolean Museum)

• The Ashmolean Museum
• Sackler Library
• The Griffith Institute
• 'Season's Greetings' from the Ashmolean - YouTube
• Virtual Tour of the Ashmolean Museum, photography from 2003
• Powhatan's Mantle—pictures, description & history
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