AP Art History Hunting in London & South England

Most of the art in this post is in the British Museum. We can have a whole conversation about why London, specifically the British Museum has so many pieces from the 250 (and I do have a lesson for that in my Classical Worlds Unit for a lesson called “Who Decides What we See in Museums?”). But I’m sidestepping that here to just list where things are located.

Note: let me know if I missed an artwork (there are many in London and I probably overlooked something

Content Area #1: Global Prehistory

#7. Jade cong

Note: I find conflicting information if this is in a private collection or the British Museum, but the British Museum does have a room on Chinese jade so you might be able to see a similar piece.

Location: Room 33b, British Museum
Cost: FREE (but when I lasted checked, you need a timed entrance ticket)
Opening Times: 10:00 am-5:00 pm (Friday 10:30 pm)

#8. Stonehenge

Note: you can technically see these for FREE by not entering the official archaeological site, but that’s dumb. Pay the money to help preserve heritage, plus it gets you into the museum too. This is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site with a stone circle in Avebury.

Location: Stonehenge Archaeological Site, Wiltshire
Cost: £20 (but there’s lots of other options for families/groups/VIP)
Opening Times: daily 9:30-5:oo (last entry at 3:00pm)

Content Area #2: Ancient Mediterranean

#16. Standard of Ur

Location: Room 56, British Museum
Cost: FREE (but when I lasted checked, you need a timed entrance ticket)
Opening Times: 10:00 am-5:00 pm (Friday 10:30 pm)

#35. Helios, horses, and Dionysus (Heracles?), Acropolis

Location: Room 18, British Museum
Cost: FREE (but when I lasted checked, you need a timed entrance ticket)
Opening Times: 10:00 am-5:00 pm (Friday 10:30 pm)

Content Area #3: Early Europe and Colonial Americas

#97. Spaniard and Indian Produce a Mestizo

Location: Breamore Estate, Hampshire
Cost: House Tour tickets are £14 (there seem to be other tours available on the property too)
Opening Times: this is a private home, only open April to October, and they make you pick specific time slots for entry

Content Area #4: Later Europe and Americas

#101. The Swing

Location: Wallace Collection
Cost: FREE (but when I was there it was part of a special exhibit called “Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of French Decorative Arts,” which was paid but totally worth it!)
Opening Times: daily 10:00am – 5:00pm

#112. Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament)

Note: you can clearly see this from the Westminster Bridge across the Thames but you can also visit inside (I’m an idiot and thought I bought tickets to the Westminster Abbey + the Houses of Parliament but I accidently only bought tickets to the abbey). This site + the abbey are part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Location: Palace of Westminster, north bank of the River Thames, City of Westminster in central London
Cost: FREE if you see it from the outside & there are lots of booking options with a range of prices – CLICK HERE
Opening Times: because I looked for this information right after the death of the Queen, they had no times/visiting information posted

Content Area #7: Central and West Asia

#191. Arabadil Carpet

Note: the “sister” carpet is in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (which is where my picture above is from). The V&A has a great article with video on the carpet: CLICK HERE.

Location: Jameel Gallery, Victoria & Albert Museum – South Kensington location
Cost: FREE
Opening Times: daily 1o:00 am-5:45 pm

Content Area #8: South, East, and Southeast Asia

#202. Shiva as Lord of Dance (Nataraja).

Note: I think THE one from the 250 is in the Metropolitan Museum in NYC but this one is super duper close

Location: Room 33, British Museum
Cost: FREE (but when I lasted checked, you need a timed entrance ticket)
Opening Times: 10:00 am-5:00 pm (Friday 10:30 pm)

#204. The David Vases

Location: Room 95 British Museum
Cost: FREE (but when I lasted checked, you need a timed entrance ticket)
Opening Times: 10:00 am-5:00 pm (Friday 10:30 pm)

Content Area #9: The Pacific

#?. ‘Ahu ‘ula (Feather Cape)

Note: The Pitt Rivers Museums in Oxford also has an ‘ahu ‘ula cape, but not THE one from the 250. According to Khan Academy the cape from the 250 is at the British Museum, along with many others, but not on display. I wanted to highlight the Pitt Rivers Museums in Oxford because that museum is light years ahead of all the other “imperial museums” (cough cough British Museum, Louvre, Met, Pergamon, etc.). They have rewritten many of their exhibit labels to discuss the problematic historic nature of displaying the art of “others.” For example, they have returned all the shrunken heads to their rightful tribes and instead of putting a new exhibit in that case, they left it empty to talk about the issues of taking and displaying sacred body parts! The museum is FREE, but I definitely donated because I want to support that kind of conversation in museum studies.

Location: British Museum (it was not on display when I researched for this blog post)
Cost: FREE (but when I lasted checked, you need a timed entrance ticket)
Opening Times: 10:00 am-5:00 pm (Friday 10:30 pm)

Content Area #10: Global Contemporary

#?. Summer Trees

Location: British Museum (it was not on display when I researched for this blog post)
Cost: FREE (but when I lasted checked, you need a timed entrance ticket)
Opening Times: 10:00 am-5:00 pm (Friday 10:30 pm)

#101. Shibboleth

Note: this piece is technically still “at the Tate Museum” because it was a crack physically put into the ground and has since been filled in. There is a picture of the original art piece in the Drawings and Paintings Room. Feel free to discuss if that destroyed the work of art or merely transformed it.

Location: original artwork – Turbine Hall, Tate Museum
Cost: FREE
Opening Times: 10:00 am-6:00 pm

#250. Kui Hua Zi (Sunflower Seeds)

Note: this piece was a temporary exhibit in the Turbine Hall at the Tate Museum so it is no longer displayed there. Here is a page from the Tate with an artist interview: CLICK HERE.

Location: original artwork – Turbine Hall, Tate Museum
Cost: FREE
Opening Times: 10:00 am-6:00 pm