British Museum

Saturday, our last full day in London, was devoted to three major museums: The British Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, and the National Gallery. These museums are all free!


The National Portrait Gallery was full of ...well, you guessed it, portraits. Photography was not allowed there, so we don't have any photos to post. I will say that I was fascinated by the variety and styles of portraiture on exhibit- who knew you could fill a huge building, 3 floors high, with portraits? There were two special exhibits that deserve mention - the BP (British Petroleum) Portrait Award section was one. The portraits here presented 56 works that were up for awards, and visitors were asked to vote for their favorite. I was enthralled at the detail in many of these portraits. I would have sworn several of them were photographs. I think my favorite was the recently completed portrait of the last living British WWI veteran, who passed away just a few weeks ago.

The second exhibit was hung in two smaller rooms, and consisted of works that had been done of the same subject, the Christian saint known as Fabiola. The image is a young woman in profile wearing a crimson cloak that covers her hair. The works were collected from flea markets and antique shops, and they vary somewhat in the size of the portrait or the shade of red that was used, but otherwise they are all strikingly similar. It made quite an effect to see the walls of these two rooms covered with images of Fabiola.

The National Gallery also did not allow photographs, but it was full of ....paintings. We went from room to room in a maze-like fashion, and since this was the last place we went that day, I have no idea what we saw. Don't cry Rob, we did appreciate ALL the masterpieces that we saw in each room. The building itself was a work of art, and we thoroughly enjoyed our wanderings.

The British Museum did allow interior photography, so we have included a few highlights for you. Thankfully the map of the British museum contained a "cheat sheet" with a list of the collection highlights and where to find them, so we used that list as our guide through the museum. As with the other two museums, even one full day would not be enough to appreciate all the treasures contained therein!!

This is THE Rosetta Stone, the most super language decoder of all time.

Tom was enthralled by the variety of people represented in this photo, taken through the glass case from behind the Rosetta Stone.

Most of the exhibits were not behind glass, and it was possible to get rather close to them.

We were amazed at many of the stone carvings in the Egyptian displays. This carving was done many, many years BC, and yet that guy looks familiar!

Apparently lions were a big threat to people in the days long ago- there were several friezes like this one showing lion hunting.

Our favorite subject - boats, water and fish....

There were volunteers in many areas who either gave mini tours of certain areas, or as this photo shows, enthralled the crowd with his story telling.

We took this photo to show that there is indeed nothing new under the sun - this guy is carrying a pretty neat "man-bag".

A covered chalice- (or perhaps a candy dish?) An explanation of two of the scenes are below.

One area was devoted to clocks and watches. Of course we were drawn to the pirate ship clock with figures that moved as the clock struck the hour.