Ashmolean Museum

Welcome to the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, a cornerstone of global museology and the oldest public museum in the British Isles. Established in 1683 to house the 'cabinet of curiosities' given by Elias Ashmole to the…

We begin our tour in the Chinese galleries, a personal favorite of many visitors and a center for the study of Asian aesthetics. These rooms are chronologically organized, allowing us to trace the development of Chinese culture…

Moving to the Music Room, we encounter a collection of stringed instruments that is among the finest in the world. The absolute jewel of this gallery is the 'Messiah' Stradivarius, a violin crafted by Antonio Stradivari in 1716. …

We now enter a gallery that captures the eighteenth-century fascination with the 'Grand Tour'. This was a rite of passage for young, wealthy British people who would travel through France and Italy to complete their education and…

Our journey continues into the galleries of seventeenth-century European art, where we find a particularly rich collection of still life paintings. These works, often by Dutch and Flemish masters, are celebrations of the domestic…

A often-overlooked gem of the Ashmolean is its extraordinary collection of coins and currency, which ranks among the most significant in the world. This gallery provides a unique perspective on the history of civilization, using…

We conclude our internal tour on the museum's upper floors, which reflect the ambitious modernization project completed in 2009. This expansion, designed by Rick Mather Architects, doubled the museum's display space and…

Our scholarly exploration of the Ashmolean Museum concludes where we began, at the threshold of Oxford's greatest cabinet of curiosities. We have traversed five millennia of human history, from the delicate silks of China to the…