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British Museum

British Museum

A museum of the world, for the world. Discover over two million years of human history and culture.The collections from Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas and the ancient world include world-famous objects such as the Rosetta Stone, the Parthenon sculptures, and Egyptian mummies.
Location
London, United Kingdom
Founded in
1759

Current events

Pablo Picasso, Still life under the lamp, 1962. Courtesy of the British Museum
Picasso, printmaker
7 Nov 2024 — 30 Mar 2025
Barbados Penny, copper alloy, England, 1792. Courtesy of the British Museum
What have we here?
17 Oct 2024 — 9 Feb 2025
Sketch on paper of envoys with horse and camel, China, AD 966. Courtesy of the British Museum
Silk roads
26 Sep 2024 — 23 Feb 2025

Past events

Eleanor Antin Judgement of Paris (after Rubens), 2007, from "Helen's Odyssey" © Eleanor Antin. Courtesy the artist and Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York
Troy: myth and reality
21 Nov 2019 — 8 Mar 2020
The Asahi Shimbun Display. Courtesy of British Museum
The Asahi Shimbun Display
19 Dec 2019 — 23 Feb 2020
Inspired by the east. Courtesy of British Museum
Inspired by the east
10 Oct 2019 — 26 Jan 2020
Decanter case with six bottles 1700s Box: Batavia (Jakarta), Java, Indonesia; Bottles: Gujarat, India Wood, silver, velvet, glass, gold 2013-00749 Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore
Sir Stamford Raffles
19 Sep 2019 — 12 Jan 2020
Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945), Plate 5 from Krieg (War): The Widow II, 1922, woodcut © The Trustees of the British Museum Reproduced by permission of private collection
Käthe Kollwitz
12 Sep 2019 — 12 Jan 2020
Manga. Courtesy of British Museum
Manga
23 May — 26 Aug 2019
Edvard Munch. Courtesy of British Museum
Edvard Munch
11 Apr — 21 Jul 2019
The Lagash Border Pillar, Early Dynastic period, c. 2400 BC © the Trustees of the British Museum
No man’s land
22 Nov 2018 — 27 Jan 2019
Unmounted youths preparing for the cavalcade, block from the north frieze of the Parthenon,about438–432 BC, Marble, © The Trustees of the British Museum
Rodin and the art of ancient Greece
26 Apr — 29 Jul 2018
Miniature prayer book. London, UK , 1540–76This enamelled gold case contains a unique miniature printed book of morning and evening prayers, hymns, psalms and meditations. It was worn on a belt and may have belonged to Queen Elizabeth I.© the Trustees of the British Museum
Living with gods: peoples, places and worlds beyond
2 Nov 2017 — 8 Apr 2018
On violence and beauty. Courtesy of British Museum
On violence and beauty
9 Nov 2017 — 21 Jan 2018
Scythians in England A Hermitage Exhibition in the British Museum. Courtesy of British Museum
Scythians: Warriors of Ancient Siberia
14 Sep 2017 — 14 Jan 2018
Club made from yew wood depicting Thunderbird with inlaid operculum shells and sea otter teeth, collection by Captain Cook on his third voyage 1776-1780 in Nootka Sound, British Columbia Canada. © The Trustees of the British Museum
Where the Thunderbird Lives
23 Feb — 27 Sep 2017
Places of the Mind: British watercolour landscapes 1850–1950. Courtesy of British Museum
Places of the Mind
23 Feb — 27 Aug 2017
Clear day with a southern breeze (‘Red Fuji’) from Thirty-six Views of Mt Fuji. Colour woodblock, 1831. © The Trustees of the British Museum. On display from 25 May - 13 August.supported by Mitsubishi Corporation
Hokusai. Beyond the Great Wave
25 May — 13 Aug 2017
Kara Walker (b. 1969), no world fromAn Unpeopled Land in Uncharted Waters. Aquatint, 2010. © Kara Walker. Reproduced by permission of the artist
The American Dream: pop to the present
9 Mar — 18 Jun 2017
Iranian voices. Courtesy of British Museum
Iranian voices
26 Nov 2016 — 21 May 2017
Courtesy of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival
Human Rights Watch Film Festival
6 — 17 Mar 2017 at the British Museum, Barbican and Picturehouse Central in London
Zulu carved ox horns, South Africa, Late 19th Century Photo © The Trustees of the British Museum
South Africa: the art of a nation
27 Oct 2016 — 26 Feb 2017
Francis Towne (1739-1816), A Sepulchre by the road between Rome and the Ponte Nomentana, 1780, Watercolour with pen and ink, 327 x 378 mm © The Trustees of the British Museum
Francis Towne’s watercolours of Rome
21 Jan — 20 Aug 2016
Gorgon Antefix, Terracotta roof ornament with head of a gorgon, Gela, Sicily, c.500 BC Museo Archeologico Regionale Di Agrigento © Regione Siciliana
Sicily. Culture and conquest
21 Apr — 14 Aug 2016
Ivory pyxis box depicting Daniel with arms raised in prayer is flanked by two lions, Egypt or Syria, 5th or early 6th century AD, © The Trustees of the British Museum
Egypt: faith after the pharaohs
29 Oct 2015 — 7 Feb 2016
Gundestrup Cauldron (detail), Silver, Gundestrup, northern Denmark, 100 BC–AD 1 © The National Museum of Denmark
Celts: art and identity
24 Sep 2015 — 31 Jan 2016
Albrecht Dürer, Dog resting, c. 1520, silverpoint over charcoal on pale pink prepared paper, 128 x 180mm © The Trustees of the British Museum
Drawing in silver and gold
10 Sep — 6 Dec 2015
Chiba Tetsuya (b. 1939), Fair Isle Light House Keepers Golf Course (detail), Scotland. Ink and colour on paper, 2015. Loaned by the artist. © Chiba Tetsuya
Manga Now: Three Generations
3 Sep — 15 Nov 2015
Nec Pluribus Impar, Designed by Jean Warin, 1672, Louis XIV as the sun warming the earth and the inscription means ‘not unequal to many’ which was his motto © The Trustees of the British Museum
Triumph and disaster
4 Jun — 15 Nov 2015
All images: Lyre, kissar, from northern Sudan, Mid to late 19th century © The Trustees of the British Museum
The Sudanese lyre
18 Jun — 16 Aug 2015
Hula dancers from the Hālau Nā Kipuʻupuʻu group, Kaʻauea, Hawaiʻi, Hawaiian Islands, 2011. Photo: Dino Morrow
Shifting patterns
5 Feb — 16 Aug 2015 at British Museum, London
James Gillray (1756 - 1815), The Plumb-pudding in Danger, 1805, London, Hand-coloured etching on paper, H 26.1 x W 36.3 cm © The Trustees of the British Museum
Bonaparte and the British
5 Feb — 16 Aug 2015 at British Museum, London
Kunmanara Hogan, Tjaruwa Woods, Yarangka Thomas, Estelle Hogan, Ngalpingka Simms and Myrtle Pennington, Kungkarangkalpa, Acrylic on canvas, 2013 © The artists, courtesy Spinifex Arts Project
Indigenous Australia
23 Apr — 2 Aug 2015 at British Museum, London
A figure of a naked man, possibly Dionysos. Marble statue from the East pediment of the Parthenon. Designed by Phidias, Athens, Greece, 438BC-432BC. © The Trustees of the British Museum
Defining beauty
26 Mar — 5 Jul 2015 at British Museum, London
The Meroë Head of Augustus, Bronze head from an over-life-sized statue of Augustus, likely made in Africa, Egypt, C.27BC - 25BC. Excavated, Africa, Sudan, 1910. © The Trustees of the British Museum
The Meroë head of Augustus
11 Dec 2014 — 15 Feb 2015 at British Museum, London
Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein, 1751 – 1829. Goethe in the Roman Campagna, 1787. 164 x 206cm. On loan from the Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main. © U. Edelmann - Städel Museum – Artothek. Gutenberg Bible: The opening page of the second volume, Parabole or Proverbs of the Gutenberg Bible. Mainz,1455. © British Library Board
Germany: Memories of a nation
16 Oct 2014 — 25 Jan 2015 at British Museum, London
Detail from: A cosmology manuscript, Late 1800s, Burma/Myanmar, Pigment on mulberry paper, Funded by the Brooke Sewell Permanent Fund © The Trustees of the British Museum.
Pilgrims, healers, and wizards
2 Oct 2014 — 11 Jan 2015 at British Museum, London
The Three Weird Sisters from Macbeth, 1785, John Raphael Smith, after Henry Fuseli, mezzotint © The Trustees of the British Museum
Witches and Wicked Bodies
25 Sep 2014 — 11 Jan 2015 at British Museum, London
Cloisonné enamel jar and cover with dragons. Metal with cloisonné enamels, Xuande mark and period (1426-1435), Beijing. © The Trustees of the British Museum
Ming: 50 years that changed China
18 Sep 2014 — 5 Jan 2015 at British Museum, London
Linenman skull. The CT scan of the skull of the mummy of an adult man (name unknown). The scan shows considerable evidence of dental abbcesses and the loss of several teeth. © Trustees of the British Museum
Ancient lives, new discoveries
22 May — 30 Nov 2014 at British Museum, London
Emperor Maximilian, a woodcut portrait, Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), C. AD 1518, Germany © The Trustees of the British Museum
Dürer’s paper triumph
11 Sep — 16 Nov 2014 at British Museum, London
Thatched Cottage in the Western Mountains, Ming dynasty (1368-1644), Tang Yin (1470-1523), Ink and colours on paper © The Trustees of the British Museum
Gems of Chinese painting
3 Apr — 31 Aug 2014 at British Museum, London
Monument – dithyrambisch (‘Monument – dithyrambic’), 1976, Markus Lüpertz (b.1941), gouache, ink and oil pastel on brown packing paper. Presented to the British Museum by Count Christian Duerckheim, © Markus Lüpertz/DACS 2013
Germany Divided
6 Feb — 31 Aug 2014 at British Museum, London
‘Sagemono and dress accessories’, from a set of ten paintings in album leaf (originally made as ceiling panels). Artist unknown, ink and colour on gold-leafed paper, about 1624-1644 © The Trustees of the British Museum
Dressed to impress
19 Jun — 17 Aug 2014 at British Museum, London
Vikings. Life and Legend
6 Mar — 22 Jun 2014 at British Museum, London
Farvahar, Aida Foroutan, 2003. The winged figure is seen by the Iranian artist as a symbol of national identity. © Aida Foroutan
Wise men from the east
24 Oct 2013 — 27 Apr 2014 at British Museum, London
Beyond El Dorado
17 Oct 2013 — 23 Mar 2014 at British Museum, London
A year-going table clock, ‘The Mostyn’. Made by Thomas Tompion, London, England, c. 1690. © The Trustees of the British Museum
Perfect timing. The Mostyn Tompion clock
21 Nov 2013 — 2 Feb 2014 at British Museum, London
Portrait of baker Terentius Neo and his wife. Pompeii, AD 55–79. © DeAgostini/SuperStock.
Life and death in Pompeii and Herculaneum
28 Mar — 29 Sep 2013 at British Museum, London

British Museum

51.51802
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Great Russell Street
London United Kingdom
+44 (0)20 7323 8299
www.britishmuseum.org
Opening hours

Saturday to Thursday
From 10am to 5.30pm
Friday from 10am to 8.30pm

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