Enlargement of building. Reading Original departments. the public on the 15th of January, 1759. Admissions to the galleries of antiquities and natural history were by tickets only, on application in writing, and were, in the first instance, limited to ten, for each of three hours in the day. Visitors were not allowed to inspect the cases at their leisure, but were conducted through the galleries by officers of the house. The hours of admission were subsequently extended, but it was not till the year 1810 that the Museum was freely accessible to the general public, for three days in the week, from ten till four o'clock. The present arrangement, by which it is opened daily, and only particular rooms are closed alternately on four days in the week, dates from the month of February in the year 1879. For a long period Montagu House was made to accommodate the Library and Museum with the collections which had subsequently accrued to them, and, in the year 1816, accommodation for the Elgin Marbles had been obtained by temporary additions to the old building; but in the year 1823 space was demanded for George the Third's extensive Library, then become public property. It had now, to some extent, become apparent to what dimensions a combined National Library and Museum of art, archæology, and natural history might be expected to attain. It was determined therefore to erect a special gallery for the reception of the Royal Library, and to make it a portion of a new building designed for the other collections, in place of Montagu House. By the year 1845 the four sides of the present Museum had been erected, and Montagn House had, to the regret of many, been removed. As time went on it was found necessary to make additions to the new buildings as designed by Sir Robert Smirke, and in 1857 the important feature of the present magnificent Reading Room, with its surrounding galleries for books, was added by Mr. Sidney Smirke, from designs suggested by the late Sir Anthony Panizzi, at that time keeper of the department of printed books. Of the several departments which constitute the present Museum some have been only gradually developed. Originally there were only three, viz.: of Manuscripts, Printed Books, and Natural History; the Coins and Medals, and " The Department of Antiquities took its rise from the pur- Antiquities. chase, in 1772, of the collection formed by Sir William Hamilton, while ambassador at the Court of Naples, the foundation of which was the collection of fictile vases belong- Vases, &c. ing to the family of Porcinari. It included in addition numerous objects in terracotta and in glass, very many coins and medals, together with bronzes, sculptures, gems and miscellaneous antiquities, and was purchased from a special parliamentary vote of £8,400. A large portion of a second collection, of equal extent to the first, was lost by shipwreck. The foundation of the Egyptian section of the department was Egyptian laid by the acquisition, in August, 1802, of the antiquities Antiquities. acquired by the capitulation of Alexandria. Marbles. In the years 1805 and 1814, the department was further enriched by purchases of classical sculpture and other objects collected by Charles Townley, of an ancient family of Lanca- Townley shire. The collection includes the majority of the finer single statues now in the Museum. The chief of them came from excavations at Hadrian's villa, near Tivoli; from the Mattei collection at Rome; from excavations at the Villa of Antoninus Pius at Monte Cagnuolo, near the ancient Lanuvium, and from the Villa Montalto at Rome; or were acquired by various purchases. During the collector's life these marbles were preserved in a house adapted for the purpose in Park Street, Westminster. Mr. Townley died in the year 1804. By his will he bequeathed his collection to his brother, on condition of his expending on a building, for its exhibition, a sum of not less than £4,500, or, failing his brother's acceptance of the condition, to his uncle, on the same terms, and if declined by both legatees, it was to go to the British Museum. In the following year, 1805, a grant of £20,000 was obtained from Parliament to enable the Trustees to make an arrangement with the family for the purchase of the marbles; and subsequently, in 1814, the bronzes, coins, gems, and drawings of Mr. Townley's collection, which were not included in the bequest, were acquired for the sum of £8,200. The years 1814 and 1815 are the period of the enrichment Parthenon of the Museum by the acquisition of portions of the frieze, Sculptures. (Elgin Mar- metopes, and sculptures in the round of the Parthenon of bles). Athens, and the Temple of Apollo at Phigaleia, in Arcadia. The Parthenon sculptures-partly the work of Pheidias and the most precious relics of antiquity-with other works of Greek art at its highest point of excellence, had been brought together by the Earl of Elgin, chiefly during his embassy at Constantinople in the years 1799 and 1811; and an Act for the purchase of his collection, for £35,000, was passed in July, 1816. Phigaleian Payne- The Phigaleian marbles had been excavated by Mr. C. R. Cockerell, the architect, and others, who had formed an association for the purpose of exploration of antiquities. They were purchased in 1815, 1816, for £19,000. Another interval of ten years was followed by the acquisition Collections. of Mr. Payne-Knight's marbles, bronzes, coins, and other antiquities, bequeathed by him to the Museum, and estimated at the time at not less than £60,000. Lycian Assyrian The marbles recovered by Sir Charles Fellows from the sites of buried cities in Lycia were received in 1845. In the years 1851-1860 were added the Assyrian sculptures Sculptures. excavated by Mr., now Sir, Henry A. Layard. remains. Mausoleum In the years 1856, 1857 were acquired the remains of the famous Mausoleum, with other works, from Budrum, the ancient Halikarnassos, recovered by Mr. Charles T. Newton, the present Keeper of the Greek and Roman antiquities. Greek Cyrene. Since then many choice works of Greek sculpture have Sculptures. been added to the Museum: especially may be mentioned those obtained from excavations at Cyrene in 1861, and by purchase from the Farnese Palace at Rome in 1864. The latest acquisitions of importance are the remains of extremely interesting sculptured columns and other objects recovered from the buried ruins of the Temple of Ephesus in the years 18631875, under the direction of Mr. J. T. Wood, and a series of architectural members and pieces of sculpture with a number of very important Greek inscriptions, excavated by the Society of Dilettanti on the site of the Temple of Athena Polias at Priene, and presented by them in 1870. Ephesus. These successive acquisitions have made the Museum collec remains. tion of Greek marbles one of the richest in Europe in works of the finest art. In sculpture of purely archaic interest the Museum is quite pre-eminent, for no other gallery can show works to rival in antiquity and completeness the wonderful monuments of Assyrian art unearthed by Mr. Layard at Assyrian Kouyunjik, the site of the ancient Nineveh, and at Nimroud. The colossal bulls and long extent of sculptured slabs covered with inscriptions which ornamented the palace of Sennacherib, the records of Assyrian history inscribed in cuneiform character on sun-dried bricks and cylinders, with ivories, bronze vases, and numerous other objects, brought together within the Museum walls, have been the means of in a great measure restoring the history and realizing the grandeur and advanced civilization of an ancient empire, the memory of which had been almost lost. The great collections of sculpture successively absorbed by the Museum were, in the majority of instances, accompanied by other monuments of ancient art-as bronzes, fictile vases, coins, gems, and gold ornaments; and these received large additions from the purchases made at the sale of the celebrated Pourtalès collection in 1865; the acquisition of the Blacas Pourtales, collection in the year 1866; and the two collections Blacas, and pur- Castellani chased from Mr. Alessandro Castellani in 1872 and 1873 collections. respectively. These are mostly brought together in the suite of rooms on the first floor. As was to be expected from their many-sided interest, the Coins and collection of coins and medals, from being a small branch of Medals. general antiquities, has grown to be a separate department. The first considerable acquisitions were derived from the general collections of Sir Robert Cotton and Sir Hans Sloane. The cabinet of Anglo-Saxon coins of Samuel Tyssen was purchased in the year 1802 for £620; and this was followed, in 1805 and 1814, by the Townley collection; in 1810 by that of English coins formed by Edward Roberts, of the Exchequer, bought by Parliamentary vote for £4,200; in the following year by the Greek coins of Colonel de Bossett (£800); in 1824 by the coins and medals in Richard Payne-Knight's collection; in 1833 by the Greek and Roman coins of H. P. Borrell, of Smyrna (£1,000); in 1836 by the oriental collection be Gems and Ornaments. phical col lections. Sloane. queathed by William Marsden; in 1856 by Greek and Roman coins from Sir William Temple's collection; in 1861 by Mr. De Salis's present of Roman coins of all metals; by that of Mr. Edward Wigan of imperial Roman gold coins, in 1864; by upwards of 4,000 coins, chiefly Roman gold, from the Blacas collection, in 1866; and in the same year by the Greek coins bequeathed by Mr. James Woodhouse. In 1872, the sum of £10,000 was expended in the purchase of the finest specimens of Greek and Roman coins in the Wigan collection. In 1877, a very important addition was made to the collection by the donation of the cabinet of coins and medals belonging to the Bank of England, including the Cuff and Haggard medals. The extensive cabinet of gems which constituted the main feature of the Blacas collection, comprising 951 cameos and intaglios, including the chief part of the Strozzi collection, belongs to the department of Greek and Roman antiquities, and is placed on view, with other gems and with gold and silver ornaments, in the room adjoining the department of Coins. The original conception of the Museum as the combination of a library with works of classical art and specimens of natural history for a long time almost excluded the important, and, to Ethnogra the general visitor, perhaps more interesting branch of Ethnographical and Medieval antiquities, though this was from the beginning partly represented by a portion of the Sloane museum. But, though of late growth, this department has rapidly developed itself, and is destined to form a conspicuous division of the Museum. The warlike weapons, the articles of dress and ornament, and other objects from the South Sea Islands, now no longer to be obtained, which had been derived from Captain Cook's explorations, until recently formed the principal representatives of the ethnographical section. But the addition of the prehistoric and general collection of Henry Christy, presented by his trustees to the nation in 1865, not as yet, however, placed in the Museum galleries, but still preserved in what was the private residence of the collector, raises it to a first importance. Cook. Christy. Medieval collections. The Medieval section has been greatly assisted by donations |