β: This is a Beta release of the Fitzwilliam Museum's potential new website.
We want to co-design
our Virtual Museum presence with you.
You can return to our current site at any time.
Following the Government announcement yesterday, museums and galleries in Cambridge will be closed to the public as part of a period of national/local restrictions. So, with great sadness, we will not be able to reopen as planned on 2 January 2021.
One of the themes brought out in the BBC series 'Civilisations' is how we look at art. In one programme, Mary Beard explores that theme in relation to some of the earliest images of the human body in the world. Included in this episode is footage of some of the objects from our collection: two Greek vases, and encaustic portraits removed from their original context in ancient Egyptian coffins (partly because they seemed much more appealing out of their perhaps macabre mummy casing). Our display shows how these objects relate to the 'Civilisations' theme, and suggests ways in which the theme can be explored throughout the Antiquities galleries in the Museum.
