The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge Exhibitions, Learning Activites, public programming, News, links & pictures from the Fitzwilliam.
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The Fitzwilliam Museum is the principal art museum of the University of Cambridge, with world-class collections spanning centuries and civilisations. The Fitz’s treasures range from Ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman
antiquities to the arts of the 21st century, and include masterpieces by Titian, Canaletto and Picasso, illuminated manuscripts, Renaissance sculpture, medieval coins and outstanding

collections of Oriental and applied arts. Book your FREE timed ticket: https://tickets.museums.cam.ac.uk/overview/generaladmission

We also have a page for our Education Department, where you can find out more about all our learning projects: https://www.facebook.com/fitzeducation

👥 This bust celebrates the friendship of two hugely influential 20th-century ceramic artists – Lucie Rie and Hans Coper....
04/09/2026

👥 This bust celebrates the friendship of two hugely influential 20th-century ceramic artists – Lucie Rie and Hans Coper.

Both emigrated to Britain to escape the N**i regime – Rie from Austria and Coper from Germany.
Between 1946 and 1958, they shared Rie's studio in London.

Coper was best known for making vessels like vases, bowls or pots, but in private, he sculpted a handful of tender busts depicting Rie, who he credited with his success. The busts were only discovered after Rie's death in 1995.

📍 See this poignant portrait on display in gallery 2

🔍 Hans Coper, Portrait of Lucie Rie. Cast bronze, modelled around 1953, cast 1997. © Estate of the Artist. Bought with the Gow Fund.

🪑 In the early 1900s artworks of interiors were becoming popular. Rented rooms like this were seen very differently from...
03/09/2026

🪑 In the early 1900s artworks of interiors were becoming popular. Rented rooms like this were seen very differently from the ‘respectable’ and ‘moral’ family home – instead these spaces were associated with access to s*x.

Scenes of women washing, getting ready or un******ng invited male viewers into an unseen private world – presenting women’s unguarded moments through a distinctly male gaze.

🏠 Washstands and iron bedframes were often features of these rented rooms. Here, the model’s black stockings and long, exposed body echo the bars of the black bedframe, suggesting she too has become part of the furniture.

📍 You can find this painting and others like it in our ‘Interiors’ gallery.

🔍 Spencer Gore, ‘The Toilet’. Oil paint on canvas, around 1910. Photograph The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge. Lent by the Provost and Scholars of King's College, Cambridge

🐮 Time to get mooving again after the bank holiday... 🐄 Painted in 1664, 'Landscape with Cattle and Figures' is by Adria...
01/09/2026

🐮 Time to get mooving again after the bank holiday...

🐄 Painted in 1664, 'Landscape with Cattle and Figures' is by Adriaen van de Velde, a Dutch painter known for his peaceful, dreamlike landscapes.

🐐 Van de Velde was particularly skilled at painting animals, and pastoral scenes with sheep, cattle and goats became his speciality.

🐑 Although the scene feels like a snapshot of rural life, van de Velde’s landscapes were often idyllic, imagined visions of the countryside, rather than views of a specific place. He often painted Italian-inspired scenes, but had never actually visited Italy.

📍 Explore more Dutch art on display in gallery 15

🖼️ Adriaen van de Velde, 'Landscape with Cattle and Figures'. Oil on canvas, 1664. Photo © the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge.

✏️ Cheers to a new school year!📚 From colourful sketchbooks to paper planes (for a little old-school classroom fun) and ...
01/09/2026

✏️ Cheers to a new school year!

📚 From colourful sketchbooks to paper planes (for a little old-school classroom fun) and William Blake-inspired coffee mugs, there’s plenty to discover in the Courtyard Shop for this back-to-school season.

🎒 New year, new supplies. See you in the shop!

🔗 Visit Curating Cambridge to shop online: https://bit.ly/49DU3Dt

🪙🗓️ What came before the pocket diary or calendar app? Calendar medals, or calendar coins, first appeared in the mid-160...
29/08/2026

🪙🗓️ What came before the pocket diary or calendar app?

Calendar medals, or calendar coins, first appeared in the mid-1600s as a portable way to help work out days and dates. They could contain a variety of information like anniversaries, religious days, or dates there would be a full moon.

This one was made in 1818 and includes a chart for when each Sunday falls, allowing you to determine days and dates for that whole year. It also includes Christian religious days, as well as details on cycle of the moon.

It's around 4cm across – a bit larger than coins we know today, but still small enough to fit in a pocket or purse. It was made in Birmingham, England, by Kempson & Son who made calendar medals each year from the late 1700s into the early 1800s.

They also traded in buttons and made silver and bronze medals. Items like this were sometimes created in part to advertise the company – a small and handy item people carried around that also had the firm's name prominently displayed.

📲 So if you're thinking of going analogue, a calendar medal might be just the thing

🔍 Calendar medal made by Kempson & Son. Brass, 1818. Photo © the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge

🌷 Tulip timeline cleanse ✨ Although we now often think of tulips as being quintessentially Dutch, in the 1500s and early...
28/08/2026

🌷 Tulip timeline cleanse ✨

Although we now often think of tulips as being quintessentially Dutch, in the 1500s and early 1600s they were rare and highly coveted as they were imported from modern-day Türkiye.

Collectors were drawn to their colour variations - the red and white flamed 'Semper Augustus' being the most prized. Huge sums of money were paid for bulbs, sometimes similar to the cost of a small house!

The tulip market reached its peak in February 1637 and then dramatically crashed 🥀

📍 Get your fill of flowers and brighten up your day in gallery 17
💭 We're free to visit and open over the bank holiday

🔍 Jan Brueghel the Elder, A Stoneware Vase of Flowers. Oil paint on panel, 1607-08. Photo © the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge

☀️ Bank holiday plans? We’ve got you.Make the most of the long weekend with a wander through the Fitz, with a little art...
28/08/2026

☀️ Bank holiday plans? We’ve got you.

Make the most of the long weekend with a wander through the Fitz, with a little art-inspired escapism and an iced coffee along the way.

👀 See what’s new in galleries 1–5, where you can spot contemporary works that have recently joined the collection. Or head to gallery 7 to enjoy new displays that journey through 300 years of creativity, culture and connection in Italy.

Plus, don't miss our two free displays: ‘Frank Bowling: Seeking the Sublime’ and ‘Essence and Presence’.

☕️ And obviously, no bank holiday gallery trip is complete without a stop for a treat at .

🔗 Visit our website to plan your visit: https://bit.ly/4eKfWjl

📷 Photography

💫 Opening soon: 'A Mughal Songbook: Art, Music and Empire' Experience the vibrant world of song, poetry and performance ...
25/08/2026

💫 Opening soon: 'A Mughal Songbook: Art, Music and Empire'

Experience the vibrant world of song, poetry and performance of Mughal South Asia from around 1750 to 1850.

'A Mughal Songbook' reveals the treasure of the Plowden songbook, a rare manuscript of 77 songs in Persian, Urdu, Classical Hindi and Punjabi, brought to life through detailed illustrations of musicians, dancers, singers and courtesans.

Through sounds, paintings, manuscripts and more, explore how art and music crossed boundaries of language and empire – from the Mughal Empire (1526–1857), which ruled much of the Indian subcontinent at that time, to the ever-expanding network of the powerful British trading organisation, the East India Company (1600–1874).

📍 8 September 2026 – 7 March 2027
🎟️ Free entry, no need to book: https://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/plan-your-visit/exhibitions/a-mughal-songbook-art-music-and-empire

🔍 Urdu ghazal by Asaf al-Dawlah Bahadar and tappah, Book of Songs, commissioned by Sophia Elizabeth Plowden. Lucknow, around 1787–88. Photo © the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge.

🏁 Racing to the Bank Holiday Monday? We've got you covered for the long weekend, with new arrivals in the galleries, ice...
24/08/2026

🏁 Racing to the Bank Holiday Monday?

We've got you covered for the long weekend, with new arrivals in the galleries, iced coffees on the café menu and more.

Visit galleries 1–5, where you can see our new contemporary art arrivals, or take an Italian trip with our newly redeveloped gallery 7, exploring 300 years of creativity, culture and connection in Italy.

Don't forget to stop by our two free displays open right now – ‘Frank Bowling: Seeking the Sublime’ and ‘Essence and Presence’.

☕ To cap it all off? Treat yourself to a stop at our Courtyard café.

🔗 Visit our website to plan your visit: https://bit.ly/4eKfWjl

📷 Photography by Lewis Ronald.

🏰🔮 What's going on in this scene from the legend of King Arthur?This drawing, 'How Morgan Le Fay gave a shield to Sir T...
21/08/2026

🏰🔮 What's going on in this scene from the legend of King Arthur?

This drawing, 'How Morgan Le Fay gave a shield to Sir Tristram’, was created by British illustrator Aubrey Beardsley in the 1890s.

It was made for an edition of Sir Thomas Malory’s book 'Le Morte D'Arthur: The Birth, Life and Acts of King Arthur, of His Noble Knights'. Malory was a writer who lived in the 1400s – this compilation of stories from Arthurian legend was originally published in 1485.

👀 In the scene, Morgan Le Fay, a witch-like figure, gives Sir Tristram the shield as part of a revenge plot against King Arthur. The shield depicts Arthur’s wife, Guinevere, with Sir Lancelot, revealing their secret affair.

Beardsley, who was born on this day in 1872, was one of the most distinctive figures of Art Nouveau – a movement popular around the turn of the 20th century, known for its decorative patterns, curved lines and natural motifs.

🗡️ Click through to get a closer look at the details.

🖤 Aubrey Beardsley, How Morgan Le Fay gave a shield to Sir Tristram. Pen and Indian ink, and Indian ink wash on paper, 1893-94. Photo © The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge.

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