British Museum

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

Former UK prime minister Liz Truss signs letter criticising ‘secretive’ campaign to return Parthenon Marbles to Greece

A letter issued by the right-wing campaign group Great British Pac claims there is a “politically orchestrated” movement to remove the sculptures

Ancient art on wheels: how Mumbai's leading museum is sending miniature exhibitions by bus into the Indian countryside

CSMVS's mobile museum venture, created in collaboration with an exhibition it curated with the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Berlin State Museums and the British Museum, examines the underlying connections between ancient civilisations

France resisted loan of Bayeux Tapestry for ‘decades’, Macron says during British Museum visit

The French president made the comments yesterday at a ceremony attended by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer

Ban on fossil fuel advertising and sponsorship to be debated by UK parliament

Campaigners behind a petition that has garnered more than 100,000 signatures are seeking to end the kind of deals struck by the British Museum and Science Museum

Comment | Why it’s wrong to shame those protesting against fossil fuel funding

Protestors are taking high personal risks with the aim of affecting policy and corporate responsibility to make clear the scale of the looming climate catastrophe

Diaryblog

A Siri-ous app-ointment: iPhone designer joins British Museum board of trustees

Apple supremo Jony Ive joins Claudia Winkleman and Martha Kearney on the museum's board

UK national museums back call for end to ‘relentless negativity’ around corporate arts sponsorship

The British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum and The National Gallery have signed a public letter authored by the co-chief executives of Sadler’s Wells

British Museum faces internal criticism over private Israel independence day event

Current and former employees have expressed shock that the museum hosted the event—which marks a day associated with the mass displacement of Palestinians—during one of the most violent weeks of the Israel-Hamas conflict

In a new exhibition, the British Museum traces the shared roots of three ancient Indian religions

Devotional art reveals how Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism have more in common than is widely believed

When—and why—did Van Gogh paint a pair of crabs?

Vincent’s audacious still-life was the first painting bought by a British collector, only three years after his death

British Museum to loan ‘some of the rarest surviving examples’ of Ice Age art to UK's City of Culture

The objects, including what the museum describes as England's oldest known figurative art work, will head to Bradford for a major exhibition opening this summer

‘Exceptional’ Iron Age hoard could help to better understand Britain's history

One of the largest and most significant from the period, the hoard was discovered at a site in Yorkshire

Revealed: British Museum’s visitor figures hit ten-year high

While other UK institutions continue to struggle, the British Museum received 6.5 million visitors in 2024, The Art Newspaper's annual visitor figures survey has revealed

Tourist admission fees at UK national museums would be ‘ideologically at odds’ with global collections, says new report

The report also describes the idea of charging international visitors as “logistically complex”

Diaryblog

British Museum attacked by eldritch horrors... in new video game

The challenges of managing the British Museum reach new highs in ‘Tides of Annihilation’

British Museum ‘running as normal’ after alleged IT attack by former employee

Both permanent galleries and temporary exhibitions were closed at the weekend following the suspected sabotage

Investigation shines fresh light on British Museum’s looted, Dürer-inspired diptych

The piece, one side of which is an enamel copy of a 16th-century woodcut, the other side crafted in Ethiopia, reveals how European icons became incorporated into the African country’s traditions