The main entrance to the Fitzwilliam Museum, facing Trumpington Sreet.

The museum was founded in 1816 with the bequest of the library and art collection of the 7th Viscount FitzWilliam. The bequest also included £100,000 "to cause to be erected a good substantial museum repository". The collection was initially placed in the old Perse Grammar School in Free School Lane. It was moved in 1842 to the Old Schools (at that time the University Library). The "Founder's Building" itself was designed by George Basevi, completed by C. R. Cockerell and opened in 1848; the entrance hall is by Edward Middleton Barry and was completed in 1875. The first stone of the new building was laid by Gilbert Ainslie in 1837.

The Egyptian Galleries at the Fitzwilliam Museum re-opened in 2006 after a two-year, £1.5 million programme of refurbishment, conservation and research.

Saint Geminianus from pentaptych by Simone Martini (c.1284-1344).

Collection

The museum has five departments: Antiquities; Applied Arts; Coins and Medals; Manuscripts and Printed Books; and Paintings, Drawings and Prints.

Together these cover antiquities from Ancient Egypt, Sudan, Greece and Rome, Roman and Romano-Egyptian Art, Western Asiatic displays and a new gallery of Cypriot Art;

The Last of England by Ford Madox Brown.

Many items in the museum are on loan from colleges of the University, for example an important group of impressionist paintings owned by King's College, which includes Cézanne's 'The Abduction' and a study for 'Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte' by Seurat.

The Museum's collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings includes a version of Ford Madox Brown's The Last of England, voted 8th greatest painting in Britain in 2005's Radio 4 poll, the Greatest Painting in Britain Vote.

There is also the largest collection of 16th century Elizabethan virginal manuscript music written by some of the most notable composers of the time. Composers such as William Byrd, Doctor John Bull, Orlando Gibbons and Thomas Tallis.

Collection Highlights

Paintings

Anglo-American

• West, Benjamin - 2 paintings;

Dutch School

• Cuyp, Aelbert - 1 painting;

• Dou, Gerrit - 3 paintings;

• Hals, Frans - 1 painting;

• Hobbema, Meyndert - 2 paintings;

• Ostade, Adriaen van - 2 paintings;

• Rembrandt van Rijn - 1 painting;

• Ruysdael, Salomon van - 1 painting;

• Steen, Jan - 3 paintings;

• Velde, Adriaen van de - 1 painting;

• Velde, Willem van de...the Younger - 1 painting;

• Weenix, Jan - 1 painting;

• Wouwerman, Philip - 2 paintings;

English School

• Beechey, William - 1 painting;

• Constable, John - 12 paintings;

• Gainsborough, Thomas - 8 paintings;

• Hogarth, William - 9 paintings;

• Hoppner, John - 1 painting;

• Kneller, Sir Godfrey - 15 paintings;

• Landseer, Sir Edwin - 1 painting;

• Lawrence, Thomas - 1 painting;

• Lely, Peter - 1 painting;

• Reynolds, Joshua - 4 paintings;

• Stubbs, George - 3 paintings;

Flemish School

• Bruegel, Jan - 5 paintings;

• Bruegel, Pieter - 1 painting;

• Frans Francken the Younger - 1 painting;

• Gossaert, Jan - 1 painting;

• Rubens, Peter Paul - 14 paintings;

• Teniers, David - 2 paintings;

• Van Dyck, Anthony - 5 paintings;

French School

• Delacroix, Eugène - 4 paintings;

• Boucher, François - 1 paintings;

• Corot, Jean-Baptiste Camille - 3 paintings;

• Degas, Edgar - 7 paintings;

• Dughet, Gaspard - 3 paintings;

• Gauguin, Eugène Henri Paul - 1 painting;

• Gellée, Claude - 1 painting;

• Gogh, Vincent Van - 1 painting;

• Greuze, Jean-Baptiste - 1 paintings;

• Liotard, Jean-Étienne - 2 paintings;

• Monet, Claude - 4 paintings;

• Pissarro, Camille - 6 paintings;

• Poussin, Nicolas - 1 paintings;

• Renoir, Pierre Auguste - 11 paintings;

• Rousseau , Théodore - 3 paintings;

• Seurat, Georges-Pierre - 1 painting;

• Troy, Jean-François de - 1 paintings;

German School

• Holbein, Hans - 2 paintings;

Italian School

• Allori, Alessandro - 1 painting;

• Bassano, Jacopo - 2 paintings;

• Canaletto, (Giovanni Antonio Canal) - 6 paintings;

• Carracci, Annibale and Ludovico - 4 paintings;

• Daddi, Bernardo - 1 painting;

• Dolci, Carlo - 3 painting;

• Domenichino, Zapieri - 1 painting;

• Duccio di Buoninsegna - 1 painting;

• Gentile da Fabriano - 1 painting;

• Fetti, Domenico - 5 paintings;

• Garbo, Raffaellino del - 1 painting;

• Gambara, Lattanzio - 8 paintings;

• Giordano, Luca - 12 paintings;

• Guercino, (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) - 1 painting;

• Longhi, Pietro - 2 paintings;

• Lotto, Lorenzo - 1 painting;

• Mantegna, Andrea - 9 canvases known as The Triumphs of Caesar

• Parmigianino - 2 paintings and 30 drawings

• Perugino, Pietro - 1 painting;

• Pesellino, Francesco - 1 painting;

• Raphael, (Raffaello Sanzio) - 8 Paintings;

• Raffaellino del Garbo - 1 painting;

• Reni, Guido - 1 paiewnting;

• Ricci, Sebastiano - 9 paintings;

• Romano, Giulio - 6 paintings;

• Sacchi, Andrea - 130 drawings;

• Sarto, Andrea del - 2 paintings;

• Strozzi, Zanobi - 1 painting;

• Tintoretto, Jacopo - 5 paintings;

• Titian, (Tiziano Vecelli) - 4 paintings;

• Vaga, Perino del - 2 paintings;

• Vasari, Giorgio - 1 painting;

• Vecchio, Palma - 2 paintings;

• Veronese, Paolo - 3 paintings;

• Verrio, Antonio - 1 painting;

• Zuccari, Federico - 1 painting;

• Zuccarelli, Francesco - 27 paintings;

Trivia

• The "Friends of the Fitzwilliam" was founded in 1909 and is the oldest society in Britain devoted to supporting a museum. One of the longest serving members (1935 - 2003) was Denys Spittle whose collection of manuscripts was exhibited in 2007 under the title "Private Pleasures: Illuminated manuscripts from Persia to Paris".

• In January 2006 a visitor, Nick Flynn, who had tripped on his shoelaces and fallen down a stairway severely damaged three Qing Dynasty vases which had been displayed there since 1948. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cambridgeshire/4662424.stm In April 2006 Mr. Flynn was arrested on charges of causing criminal damage. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cambridgeshire/4878850.stm Charges against him were later dropped.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cambridgeshire/5098362.stm The first of the vases was restored by experts and put back on display in August 2006. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cambridgeshire/5252656.stm

Directors

A Henry Moore sculpture outside the museum

• Timothy Potts, former director of the Kimbell Art Museum http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/dp/2007060103, 2007-
• Duncan Robinson 1995-2007
• Simon Swynfen Jervis 1990-1995
• Professor Michael Jaffé 1973-1990
• Sir David Piper 1966-1973
• Carl Winter 1946-1966
• Louis Clarke 1937-1946
• Sir Sydney Cockerell 1908-1937
• Sir Charles Walston 1883-1889

References

External links

• Fitzwilliam Museum website
• University of Cambridge information
• External views of the Fitzwilliam Museum
• Paintings from The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge exhibition at the National Gallery, London, 2002

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