Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology

Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology: The collections of the Department of Antiquities cover almost the entire span of human history from the Lower Palaeolithic to the Victorian era. They incorporate the surviving parts of the Museum's earliest collections, notably the founding collections of the Tradescants which were donated to the University by Elias Ashmole in 1683. They also include a wide-ranging and comprehensive representation of the early cultures of Europe, Egypt and the Near East which owe much to the Museum's long association with the field of archaeology. The department has a strict policy of not acquiring material which has left its place of origin illegally.

The Cast Gallery is part of the Ashmolean Museum and holds one of the largest and best preserved collection of casts in the UK. It also contains over 100,000 impressions and electrotypes of gems and cameos from various European collections, some of which are on public display and the rest can be seen by appointment.

The Museum of Eastern Art was formed in 1949 as a subdivision of the Department of Fine Art, housed in the old Indian Institute which had maintained its own museum of Indian art since 1897. The transfer of these combined collections to the museum's own building, to form the Department of Eastern Art, provided large new opportunities. A series of generous benefactions provided roughly nine-tenths of the department's original holdings.

The works of art in the care of the Department of Western Art include European (including Russian) paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture, applied arts, and musical instruments from the Middle Ages to the present day. They incorporate numerous individual specialist collections. .

For more information about Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, please contact 44 (0)1865 278002, or see event details on the left.

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