Featured Collections

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British Museum

From BBC FOUR

For more about the programme and a quiz to test your knowledge, visit BBC FOUR's site for World In A Box on bbc.co.uk.

Aspic or celebration?

How did the cabinets of curiosities brought back from the voyages of discovery of the 16th and 17th centuries lead to the rise of museums?

Listed below are the items from 17th/18th century collections which appeared in the programme, plus the collections in which they reside. Many of these are available for public viewing - contact the museums for availability and opening times.

The British Museum: Sloane Collection
• Grey’s Inn hand axe
• Oliver Cromwell’s death mask
• Sloane Astrolabe
• Terracotta bust of Sloane by John Rysbrack
• Wooden statuette of Mercury
• Mother-of-pearl shell with Buddha Pearls
• Oriental carved hornbill beak
• Wampum beads
• Indian vomiting stick
• 'Penis sheath' with label added by Sloane
• Thunderbird pouch, with corresponding watercolour image by Sarah Stone in her album of paintings from the Leverian collection
• Watercolour by Sarah Stone of the Leverian Museum
• Seal decoy hat – collected by Captain Cook
• Whaling hat – collected by Captain Cook

The Natural History Museum, London: Sloane Collection
• Engraved Nautilus shell
• Glove woven from the beard of a mollusc
• Preserved specimens in bottles
• Sloane/Petiver butterfly collection
• Sloane Herbarium – cocoa specimen

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Content last updated: 25/07/2005