British Museum

London National Gallery’s visitor numbers remain below pre-Covid levels, despite renovation boost

Meanwhile, London’s Natural History Museum overtakes British Museum as most-visited attraction in the UK

British Museum did not remove Palestine from labels due to pressure campaign, museum sources say—as backlash continues

Some scholars however have questioned the wording used in the new labels in the Ancient Levant and Egyptian galleries

Manumission digitisation project reveals grim story of slavery in Brazil

Records show how masters retained power over enslaved people even after emancipation

British Museum secures £5m sponsorship for Bayeux Tapestry display

The funding, from Belarus-born hedge fund billionaire Igor Tulchinsky, will help facilitate schools' access to the historic textile

Indianews

Back to Assam: British Museum agrees to loan fragile tapestry showing Krishna’s life

The government of Assam in northeastern India plans to build a new museum space to show the 17th-century Vrindavani Vastra

Tracey Emin: 'Racist behaviour is dividing our country'

As her landmark Tate Modern exhibition opens, the artist discusses the rise of Reform UK and the British Museum's "terrible colonial past"

The US struggles with history, Stephen Friedman Gallery closes, Tudor Heart pendant acquired by the British Museum—podcast

Ben Luke speaks to our editor-in-chief, Americas, Ben Sutton about the disputes that have arisen as the US marks its 250 years since the Declaration of Independence—and hears about the demise of Stephen Friedman’s Gallery. Plus, the story of a heart-shaped pendant tied to Katherine of Aragon and Henry VIII

Hosted by Ben Luke. Produced by Alexander Morrison and David Clack

British Museum acquires £3.5m golden pendant linked to Henry VIII after high-profile campaign

The museum raised the money to buy the Tudor Heart following a celebrity-endorsed fundraising campaign launched in October

British Museum reports record-breaking year for finding treasure in the UK

Discoveries by metal detectorists account for 94% of recorded finds in 2024

Hawai’i at the British Museum, a Venice palazzo for sale, Joseph Beuys’s ‘Bathtub’—podcast

Ben Luke hears about the British Museum’s fresh approach to the stewardship of its collection of Hawaiian objects, discusses the eerie history of Ca’ Dario and learns more about a late Beuys work

Hosted by Ben Luke. Produced by Alexander Morrison and David Clack

‘It’s madness’: David Hockney blasts plans to loan Bayeux Tapestry to UK

The artist says he is concerned about the “physical and environmental risks” posed by sending the work to the British Museum

Book Clubfeature

A taster of the British Museum's Hawaii show in three objects

The curator Alice Christophe delves into the catalogue and picks out some key objects ahead of the exhibition in London

Alice Christophe. With an introduction by Gareth Harris

UK government insures Bayeux Tapestry for £800m during loan to British Museum

Historic embroidery will be protected from damage or loss under taxpayer-backed scheme

British Museum's looted ewer set for return to Ghana on long-term loan

The 14th-century, English-made Asante Ewer was seized from the royal palace in Kumasi in 1896 and has been held by the British Museum ever since

British Museum stubs out controversial tobacco sponsorship deal

The move follows a recent report which described the partnership as a key part of the tobacco firm’s lobbying strategy

A brief history of the British Museum's central London home

The redesign of the Western Range of the British Museum, announced earlier this year, is the latest stage of a 272-year-long history

‘A static collection is a dead collection’: how the British Museum is acquiring for a global public

Once many objects came to the museum through conflict and colonial exploitation, but today they arrive by donations, bequests, purchases and commissions

Three medieval ewers shrouded in mystery go on display in York

The jugs include the British Museum’s Asante Ewer, which was made in England but ended up in West Africa, before being looted by the British

Lina Ghotmeh: ‘Museums should go beyond conservation to foster exchange, reflection and critical thinking’

The architect of the remodelling of the British Museum’s Western Range is reimagining the London institution as “a place of connections”

British Museum ball disrupted by climate protestor demanding end to BP sponsorship

The protestor took to the stage in the midst of a speech by the museum's chair of trustees, George Osborne

Straight-line storytelling: how will the British Museum display the Bayeux Tapestry?

The tapestry will be lent to the museum from September 2026 to July 2027, returning to England for the first time in nearly a thousand years

British Museum seeks £3.5m to keep rare gold pendant—with ties to Henry VIII’s daughter—in the UK

The Tudor Heart, discovered by a metal detectorist in 2019, is the only object of its kind surviving from the British monarch’s reign

With works by Munch and Mamma Andersson, the British Museum reveals the darkness of Nordic noir

The survey brings together more than 150 works by 100 different artists for a peek behind the clichés of apparently idyllic Nordic life

From dangerous erotica to secret smoking canteens: ten things you didn't know about The British Museum

Behind its ordered, Neo-Classical façade, the London institution has been home to plenty of intrigue and eccentricity

Comment | The British Museum Ball will celebrate the things that connect us

The inaugural British Museum Ball will raise funds for the institution’s overseas collaborations, the BM’s director says, while emphasising the importance of the historic collection’s global reach

Bayeux Tapestry is safe to travel to UK, insists British Museum director

Nicholas Cullinan says that French and UK experts will guide every stage of the loan

Tens of thousands sign petition to stop loan of ‘extremely fragile’ Bayeux Tapestry to UK

The appeal references alleged warnings from textile restorers that a move could risk damaging the 1,000-year-old work’s embroidered linen fabric

After a £27m makeover, Norwich Castle reopens with a new gallery, royal rooms—and medieval toilets

The castle in the east of England now also hosts the largest display of the British Museum’s medieval collection outside of London

Van Gogh’s love of Hiroshige, the Japanese master of the landscape, is reflected in a British Museum exhibition

An unusual chance to see Vincent’s own copy of a print which inspired one of his most intriguing paintings