The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford

The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford


Image by UGArdener
We spent a rainy Sunday morning sampling the collection of this beautiful museum. The sometimes blurry pictures of the paintings and other art objects were taken quickly without a tripod, and are included to give some idea of the range and depth of this magnificent collection. The cafeteria downstairs is a bright, pleasant and relatively inexpensive place to get a good, quick healthy lunch in Oxford.

Here is the introduction from the current Wikipedia article:

The Ashmolean Museum (in full the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology) on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is the world’s first university museum. Its first building is sometimes attributed to Sir Christopher Wren, though there is no good evidence for this claim, and was built in 1678–1683 to house the collection or cabinet of curiosities Elias Ashmole gave Oxford University in 1677.
The works include that of Elias Ashmole, which he had collected himself as well as those he had acquired from the gardeners, travellers and collectors John Tradescant the elder and his son of the same name. 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 it was so moth-eaten it was destroyed, except for its head and one claw. The museum opened on 6 June 1683, with naturalist Robert Plot as the first keeper.
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 staff. Since 1935, 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 1845. 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. The main museum contains the original collections of Elias Ashmole and John Tradescant (father and son), as well as huge collections of archaeology 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.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashmolean_Museum