Fitzwilliam Museum

About Fitzwilliam Museum

Fitzwilliam Museum is located on the Trumpington street in Cambridge and is a place where art and antiquities are exhibited. It is a museum of the Univeristy of Cambridge and the great thing about it is that admission is free. The museum was established in 1816 through the bequest of Richard, 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam of Merrion and has about 470,000 visitors. And the main thing here is that the admission is free!

So, the museum celebrates its 200-th birthday in 2016!

The entrance

Walking in the yard, you are amazed by the modern decorations along with the old ones. There is a red spiral figure, which makes a contrast to the green grass beneath it. There are some mirrors and  balls, which are originally constructed.

Going inside, you are fascinated by wonderful statues, ornaments on the walls, columns, statuettes, archs... This is just splendid! You want to see and feel every detail and wonder who could make something like this beautiful.

The collection

Inside you will find many collections from ancient Greece to the modern sculptures and stuff. There are these whole sections of them. And although, we wanted to look at every piece of the collections, while we started from the beginning, we just couldn’t get at the end of the museum without passing by some stuff.

Ancient World

• Ancient Near East

• Cyprus

• Egypt

• Greece & Rome

• Kemet & Kush

• Nubia & Sudan

Applied Arts

• Arms & Armour

• Arts of Asia

• Ceramics, Glass & Enamels

• Furniture & Clocks

• Islamic Art

• Sculpture, Ivories & Woodwork

• Silver & Jewellery

• Textiles & Fans

Coins & Medals

• Coins & Medals

Manuscripts & Printed Books

• Archives

• Fine Printed Books

• Illuminated Manuscripts

• Literary Manuscripts

• Music

Paintings, Drawings & Prints

• Paintings
• Prints
• Watercolours & drawings

Our visit to Fitzwilliam Museum

Everything started from 5300 BC! We were in Mesopotamia with this Cuneiform Cylinder and Roaring Lion… Then we met Ashurnasirpal the 2-nd from Assyria.

We went to Roman occupated Egypt and saw clay figures of warriors. Then we moved to Greece and Rome with Herakles and wine jars and Cycladic figurine…

Then there was the Cyprus. Did you know that the Cyprus collection of Fitzwilliam museum is one of the three most significant in the United Kingdom? There you can see a Terracotta horse and worshiper from about 6-th century.

Moving from there we went to armoury. There are more than 400 pieces of armour in Fitzwilliam museum and the majority of them is European. You can see knights’ armour there and I guess everyone is interested in that, as they have all seen films about knights and Robin Hood and stuff.

Look at those paintings and tell me how one can not be amazed by them. The last one on the right is painted by the great artist _ Vincent Van Gogh!

There are many ceramics from different countries and different centuries and many paintings in many large rooms. And then there is one room, where you can see fans from Asia and they care for those fans very much. They are really beautiful!

There are so many things in Fitzwilliam museum, that there is not enough time to see them all. During my visit in Cambridge, I was there for three times and still could not see everything that was in those huge rooms! 

And while taking pictures was prohibited there, or maybe it was prohibited to take pictures with a flash _ I don't really remember _ I still could not resist not taking pictures of some of these things.

Exhibits from Georgia

I heard there was an exhibition in 2008-2009, where there were exhibited some collections from Georgia. "From the Land of the Golden Fleece: Tomb Treasures of Ancient Georgia" _ that's how they wrote about the exhibition.

Well, some of you may already know about Georgia and the myth about Argonauts _ it's all in the famous Greek Mythology. It's about Greek hero _ Jason, who led the Argonauts to a land of Golden Fleece, and how Georgian Princess Medea helped him overcome all the obstacles, that Georgian King made for them and take the Golden Fleece in Greece.

There were exhibited over 140 treasures never before shown outside Georgia. There were important Vani findings from tombs and sanctuaries dating back to the 5-th to the 1-st centuries BC. Vani is on a territory once called the Colchis _ this was an ancient kingdom of Colchis. The wealth and jewellery and many other things found in those tombs and sanctuaries are fascinating.