Friday 9 August 2019

THE BRITISH MUSEUM LONDON




A recent ITV poll for Britain's 20 Greatest National Treasures named The British Museum

in London as the 17th most popular place to visit in the U.K, although technically it
is officially unchallenged as Britain's most popular place to visit in all of the U.K with over
6 million visitors each year.
It is the world's oldest national public museum which was founded in 1753, first opening
it's doors to the public in 1759, 17 years before the American Declaration of Independence.

Having not been there for quite some time I was keen to see the rather grand new entrance
called The Queen Elizabeth II Great Court which first opened in 2000. It certainly is
impressive looking as you walk in. And in 2015 the Museum was mapped out and presented
digitally and became the world's largest indoor space on Google Street View.
Take a digital tour yourself and see HERE.

Once inside I was keen to see various artifacts on display including the large Egyptian
statues along with The Rosetta Stone. And of course there was the Elgin Marbles which
can be a touchy subject for the museum, as the Greek Government would be more than
happy for them to be returned.

There was also a Rembrandt Exhibition on that I was just lucky enough to catch
as it only ran until the 4th of August. It featured many of his Archive Sketches.

But one of the displays that really surprised me was in The Korea Foundation Gallery 
as it featured a fully constructed Sarangbang which is a room located in a traditional
Korean house, known as a Hanok. Those pictures are at the bottom of this post.

Of course being August with all the Schools still on their Summer break, I was surprised
to see so many enthusiastic young people enjoying the exhibits. But after observing some of
them, I couldn't help thinking that most of them were instagraming.  And so perhaps
social media is playing a part in the high number of visitors to this iconic Museum.

THE BRITISH MUSEUM LONDON WEBSITE

Above: An archive photo image of the Museum taken in 1852.
Photo by Roger Fenton.



BRITAIN'S GREATEST NATIONAL TREASURES
  ( ITV POLL)

1.  Stonehenge.  2. Tower Bridge.  3.  The Lake District.  4.  The Tower of London.
5.  Cheddar Gorge, Somerset.  6.  Edinburgh Castle.
7.  Jurrasic Coast, Dorset.  8.  Loch Ness.  9.  St Paul's Cathedral.
10.  The White Cliffs of Dover.  11.  Hadrian's Wall.  12.  Mount Snowden, Wales.
13.  Giant's Causway, N. Ireland.  14.  The Roman Baths in Bath.
15.  Westminster Abbey.  16.  St Michael's Mount, Cornwall.
17.  The British Museum.  18.  Big Ben/Palace of Westminster.
19.  Buckingham Palace.  20.  Kew Gardens.
Above and below:  The grand entrance known as The Queen Elizabeth II
Great Court, which first opened in 2000.



Above and below: The colossal statue of King Ramesses II.
One of the largest artifacts in the Egyptian collection.
Above: An Egyptian Mummy with amulets on a frame.
From the Roman era, after 30 B.C.

Below: The historic Rosetta Stone.



Above:  Hercules - A Roman copy of an original by the Greek
sculptor Lysippos of about 325 - 300 B.C.
Said to have been found at the foot of Mount Vesuvius and
presented to The British Museum by Sir William Hamilton
in 1776.


Below: Statue of a dancing Faun with the infant Bacchus,
the God of Wine.
( Roman, 2nd century )
Below Left:  Discobolus - Roman, 2nd century A.D.

Right:  Apollo - Roman, 2nd century.





Above and below: One of my favourite exhibits, The Sarangbang,
a traditional Korean room located in a Hanok.
Oh to have just had a little walk around inside of it would have been
wonderful, but alas it was all sealed off to the public.
It was a case of just look but don't touch.

4 comments:

  1. The museum certainly looks busy. Maybe my memory is defective but during our recent UK visit, so many places were overrun with tourists, much busier than I remember during previous visits.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Andrew, The increasing tourists has something to do with social media and the instagram craze.

      So you survived your trip, be it with a few health scares. So now you can unravel the mystery of what
      you've been up to and where, these last few weeks... as you often keep your itinerary quiet before going away.
      But yes, travelling long haul flights in our senior years can be scary if people are not fit enough.

      I guess though that you won't post up all of your trip as one big post as I always prefer to do.
      Maybe I don't have the patience when Bloggers trips are spread out over several weeks. So I'll look
      forward to when you get back to your normal routine.

      Delete
  2. This brought back a lot of memories. The British Museum is fantastic. Seeing the Elgin Marbles was unforgettable. I've always loved the Roman sculptural portraits - they're not idealized. They're intensely personal, honest - warts and all. Thanks for these wonderful photos, Dee

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Tim, Glad you made it back here. Yes I was really pleased to get to the Museum last week. And what a history the whole place has. And what a bit of luck to catch the Rembrandt sketches before they took them away.
      Yes the Greek and Roman sculptures are amazing. You do wonder how we have so many of them.

      The fairly new but grand entrance is quite an eye opener, for many it looked like instagram Heaven! It's got a bit of the old and new.
      Of course it took a while to finally get in as there was quite a long queue to actually get in.

      I'm hoping to visit later this week a wonderful House with some spectacular world renowned paintings, including Titian's 'Orpheus Enchanting the Animals' which has just been restored. But experts now believe that it may not be all of Titians work. They're saying that perhaps the artist's studio assistants were responsible for the completing it.

      You can read the full story on the painting and the wonderful London House where it can be seen.

      https://makingamark.blogspot.com/2019/08/a-gem-of-art-collection-and-maybe-titian.html

      Delete

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