THE BRITISH MUSEUM

See Also: THE BRITISH LIBRARY The British Museum British Library; CONFECTIONERY Chocolate, Milk Chocolate; EGYPTOLOGY The Rosetta Stone; ESTATES The Cadogan Estate; GARDENS & PLANTS The Garden Museum; MUSEUMS; MUSEUMS The Natural History Museum; MUSEUMS, DISAPPEARED & LATENT The Holophusikon; PHYSICIANS Sir Hans Sloane

During the first half of the 18^thC Sir Hans Sloane, an Irish-born physician had an immense annual income that was derived from the fees that he was able to charge his patients. It rose to be higher than that of most of his aristocratic clients. In 1702 his friend William Courten bequeathed to him some curios. These acted as the nucleus for a major collection of artefacts. In 1712 the doctor bought the Manor of Chelsea. He used the manor house as a home for his rapidly growing assortment of antiquarian and natural historical items.

In 1753 Sir Hans died. He left his collection to the nation upon the condition that a sum of £20,000 - far less than its current value - was paid to his heirs. Parliament sanctioned the payment and the items were acquired. Two years later the proceeds from a state lottery were used to buy Montagu House. In 1759 the British Museum was opened as a national institution.

From the early 19^thC through to the early 20^thC, the Museum was continually physically altering itself, through a series of extensions and rebuildings. While still growing, the institution began to eject portions of itself. In 1881 its Natural History collection was moved to South Kensington where the material evolved into being the Natural History Museum. In 1973 its library became part of the British Library, which moved away to King's Cross in 1997.

The 11^th Duke of Devonshire sought to sell 70 drawings to the British Museum for £5.5m. They included images by Raphael and Rubens. The institution was only prepared to pay 5m. His grace had the works auctioned. They raised £21m. The Department of Trade's reviewing committee on the export of works of art placed temporary export bans on a number of the drawings so that equal sums could be raised so that they could be retained in Britain. The committee's adviser was John Rowlands (1931-2016), the Keeper of Prints & Drawings at the museum. He had played a role in the institution's rebuffing the duke's £5.5m offer.

An oddity of the British Museum is that only a small proportion of the items in its collection were made in the British Isles.

Location: 4 Bloomsbury Place, WC1A 2QA. (Sloane s home from 1695 to 1742.) (red, blue)

Great Russell Street, WC1B 3DG (blue, yellow)

Website: www.britishmuseum.org

Epic of Gilgamesh

Nineveh was sacked in 612 B.C. by a coalition of peoples that it had been subjugating. In 1849 Austen Henry Layard recovered 28,000 clay tablets from Ashurbaniapal's library. They were sent to the British Museum, where they sat for half a generation. In 1866 George Smith was appointed to work on them. A decade later he was able to provide a rough translation although the material was not in the correct order. Further tablets were discovered.

The tale includes a section in which Gilgamesh talks with a man who had become immortal through surviving a flood that destroyed humanity. In 1872, when Smith translated this and appreciated its similarity to the account of Noah's ark in The Bible, he is supposed to have taken off his clothes and run around naked. It became something that was discussed internationally.

Other tablets were discovered. The work is not complete.

The interests of the polymath William Fox Talbot included trying to understand the Akkadian script on cuneiform tablets. In 1856 he proposed to the Royal Asiatic Society. The organisation's secretary Edwin Norris arranged for Fox Talbot, Henry Rawlinson and two others to try to translate some tablets independently of each other. These were pretty much the same. It took another four years for the result to be printed.

Website: www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_K-3375

The Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art

The Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art ran a small museum that was focused upon Chinese ceramics that had been made between the 10^thC and the 18^thC.

Sir Percival David 2^nd Bt. was born into a Baghdadi Jewish family that had developed business interests in India.¹ In the late 1920s and again in 1930 he visited China and made a number purchases of cultural artefacts. He acquired over 1500 items. In 1950 the baronet gave his collection to the University of London. The Foundation was established and became linked to the School of Oriental & African Studies. Two years later the Foundation's museum was opened to the public. In 2007 financial factors prompted the institution to close its museum. The artefacts were transferred into the care of the British Museum.

The blue of the blue and white David vases was derived from cobalt that had been imported from Persia. The use of the colour in ceramic decoration had originated there and had been taken to China in the wake of the country's conquest by the Mongols. Chinese vase makers employed it for items that were made for export to the Middle East.

See Also: THE BANK OF ENGLAND A Mulberry Grove; TOWNHOUSES, DISAPPEARED Montagu House

¹. David's maternal grandfather was Elias David Sassoon, who had settled in Shanghai in 1850.

The Portland Vase

The Portland Vase is a 24cm-tall, blue and white cameo glass vase that was made in the 1^stC B.C.. It is believed to have been unearthed near Rome during the 1550s. The first known reference to it was made in 1601. In 1778 it was purchased by the diplomat Sir William Hamilton. In 1784 he sold it and three other items to the Duchess of Portland for 2000. Following her death, the vessel was inherited by her son the 3^rd Duke of Portland. He lent it to Josiah Wedgwood, who devoted three years to trying to make a high-quality reproduction of it. In 1810 the vase was loaned to the British Museum by the 4^th duke. In 1945 the 7^th one sold it to the institution.

See Also: SHOPPING Wedgwood

Website: www.britishmuseum.org/portlandvase

The Secretum

The British Museum's Sectretum contained those items that were regarded as being too obscene to be on public view.

The Warren Cup

The Warren Cup is a silver cup that features two depictions of homosexual fornication. It was unearthed from the site of villa near Jerusalem. The scene would have been a Greek past to people who saw it when it was in use. The Greeks had never shown penetrative acts.

It was made about 10 A.D..

In 1911 Edward Warren bought it in Rome. It proved impossible to sell. It was refused entry into the United States. In 1999 the British Museum bought it. It was the most expensive item that the museum had bought to that date.

See Also: GAY & LESBIAN; THE KISS

David Backhouse 2024