Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Snowy Winter Landscape Christmas Cards

Christmas Rose With Dove Christmas Cards

Two Birds Eating Holly Christmas Cards

Our Christmas cards are a celebration of art and beauty, featuring stunning paintings and images gathered from around the world and spanning centuries of creativity: shop.ashmolean.org/collections/...

Get a head start on your festive shopping with 15%* off at the Ashmolean online shop this week. Use the code 15EARLYBIRD25 at checkout (terms and conditions apply): shop.ashmolean.org/collections/...

In Japanese culture, the egret is a symbol of tranquillity and enlightenment.

These charming egrets were designed by potter Miyagawa Hanzan in Japan in the early 20th century.

See them on display in Gallery 36 on Level 2.

🪿🪿 Figure of two egrets, 1910–1925, Miyagawa Hanzan (1859–1940). EA2014.60

THIS IS WHAT YOU GET EXHIBITION Showcasing the visual art of Stanley Donwood and Thom Yorke and the iconic images of Radiohead, this major retrospective opens in 2025.

The exhibition is open at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, until 11 January 2026: www.ashmolean.org/exhibition/t...

Ashmolean Members go for free.

Have you booked your tickets to see This Is What You Get: Stanley Donwood, Radiohead, Thom Yorke?

You’ll find including original paintings for album covers, digital compositions, etchings, unpublished drawings, and lyrics in sketchbooks, from the artists’ 30-year collaboration.

See the jar on display in Gallery 10 on the ground floor.

💚 Green-glazed jar, 701–800 CE, China. Earthenware with green glaze. 16cm (height) by 17.5cm (diameter). EA1956.3114

This type of brightly glazed ceramic was made for only about fifty years, during the reign of emperor Minghuang – who ruled from 712 to 756 – when the Tang dynasty was at its height. At the time, the capital city Chang'an (modern Xian) was one of the most populous and cosmopolitan in the world.

This extraordinarily vibrant green-glazed jar was made in China in the 8th century.

Spilt wax, intricate drawings and etched copper plates; what started as an evening spent drawing by candlelight led to the album artwork for In Rainbows.

📸
1 © Thom Yorke & Stanley Donwood
2 © 2007 LLLP LLP under exclusive license to XL Recordings Ltd.

A round Indian gold coin depicting a Goddess seated on a lion

Chandra Gupta II extended the Gupta Empire considerably to the West and is well-known by his title ‘Vikramaditya’ or ‘Sun of Valour’. On the reverse of this coin, the goddess Lakshmi is shown seated on a lion, making a gesture of scattering coins with her right hand.

🦁 Gupta coin. HCR6769

A round Indian gold coin featuring a figure with a crossbow killing a lion.

The kings of the Gupta dynasty of Ancient India showed themselves on coins in various royal roles.

Here Chandra Gupta II is dramatically depicted slaying a lion, with a bow and arrow. Hunting was a royal privilege and its depiction implies bravery and power as well as the ideals of kingship.

Crisp sunny mornings and crunchy golden leaves are here, so we’re celebrating with this wonderfully seasonal woodblock print by Utagawa Hiroshige.

🍁 Maple Trees at Mama, Tekona Shrine, and Linked Bridge, 1857, by Utagawa Hiroshige I (1797–1858). EAX.4362

A large ancient pot with a large octopus painted on in black with it's tentacles all curled around it.

Compared to the earlier, more naturalistic depictions of octopuses in Minoan art, this octopus is rather stylized, notably in the number of arms. Despite the less realistic approach, the animal’s open eyes and curling limbs bring it to life.

🐙 Knossos storage jar. AN1911.608

A close up image of an ancient pot with a large octopus painted on in black with it's tentacles all curled around it.

This jar stands at an impressive height of 75 cm. The painted decoration depicts an octopus, swimming in an abstract seascape. The jar comes from the Minoan palace at Knossos, on the island of Crete, and was created in the 15th century BCE.

A round ancient coin with a bee in the centre

A blue and white wavy edged plate with three cranes painted in the centre

A painting of a tiger walking in the snow and roaring

🐝 Tetradrachm coin with a bee, Turkey, silver, HCR5273
🪽 Dish with three cranes, waves and clouds, 1600–1800. Porcelain, 3 x 16.8 x 12.5 cm. EA1981.44
🐯 Tiger, 1889–1995, after Gao Qifeng (1889–1933). Ink and colour on paper, 164 x 88 cm. EA1995.249

A painting of flowers, insects and butterflies

A glass ring with gold lion on a blue background

🦋 Flowers and Insects, Jan van Kessel, the Elder (1626–1679). Oil on copper, 28.7 x 22 cm. WA1940.2.44
🦁 Gold-glass fragment with a lion, set in modern finger-ring, 201–400 CE. Gold, 1.8 cm diameter. AN2007.15

A silk purse in the shape of a frog

A small object in the shape of a metal spider on top of a wooden chestnut

It's always #WorldAnimalDay with our collection! Do you have a favourite in the Ashmolean?

Scroll ➡️ to see just a few of them.

🐸 Frog purse, 1601–1700. Silk, 8 x 6 2 cm. WA1947.191.324
🕷️ Ojime in the form of a spider on a chestnut, 1871–1900. Sentoku, 1.7 x 1.6 x 1 cm. EA1956.3754

A watercolour of a staircase with three figures sleeping on three of the steps. In the sky is a large sun.

This dream-like illustration is a detail from William Blake’s illustration to the 'Divine Comedy', Purgatorio XXVII, showing Dante and Statius sleeping with Virgil watching.

Detail from Dante and Statius sleeping, William Blake, 1827. WA1918.3

Hear it from our visitors...

Explore the visual art of Stanley Donwood and Thom Yorke and the iconic images of Radiohead, This Is What You Get is open until January 2026.

🎟️ Book your tickets today: www.ashmolean.org/exhibition/t...

🏛️ Ashmolean Members go for free.

Curved brushes are used to reach down the narrow neck of the bottle and the image is built up almost in reverse. Fine details are added first before the large image is created and colour added.

Both of these little snuff bottles were created by the same artist, Zhongshan Ye.

🖌️EAX.718

🖌️EAX.719

A glass bottle painted from the inside with a rural Chinese scene with three women sitting under a tree

🎨 The decoration painted onto these bottles is on the inside of the glass!

The process is known as verre églomisé, it is an application that not only requires special tools but an incredible level of skill.

A gold necklace with pendants in the shape of acorns hanging across the whole piece

It was found in a tomb that contained other gold ornaments, bronze and silver vessels, and a bronze mirror; this selection of objects indicates that the grave belonged to a woman.

See it on display in Gallery 16 on Level G.

🍂 Gold necklace, 500–401 BCE, Crimea. AN1885.482

A gold necklace with pendants in the shape of acorns hanging across the whole piece

This striking gold necklace was made over 2,400 years ago. In ancient Greece, acorns were symbols of abundance and fertility, and used as decoration on gold objects.

The necklace was excavated over 150 years ago from the necropolis of Nymphaion in the Crimea, previously an ancient Greek colony.

EUROPEAN CERAMICS GALLERY The ceramics on display in this gallery cover 500 years of production ranging from the distinctive 17th century Staffordshire slipware by Thomas Toft and Worcester porcelain pieces to the Japanese…

This new display within the European Ceramics Gallery is the outcome of a collaboration, bringing together a group of Oxford-based producers with artists, project consultants and a Museum team.

Shedding Light opens today, plan your visit: www.ashmolean.org/european-cer...

A photograph of an element of the Shedding Light display - a light bulb surrounded by fragments

A photograph of the Shedding Light display

A photograph of a detail of the Shedding Light display - a set of ceramics laid out on a table

We are delighted to introduce you to Shedding Light, a new permanent display.

Through the creation of a 1950-60s Caribbean living room, Shedding Light reveals the intertwined histories of colonialism, enslavement, sugar production, and ceramics.

An ancient Roman coin with nicks missing around the edge and a figure in the centre.

Sadly, for Domitianus, the extreme rarity of this coin – only the second known in existence – suggests that his bid for power is unlikely to have lasted more than a few days or weeks. The coin of this ‘lost emperor’ gives us a fascinating insight into the period between 200 and 300 CE

HCR6264.

An ancient Roman coin with nicks missing around the edge and the profile of a man in the centre.

Have you ever heard of the emperor Domitianus?

This remarkable coin discovered on farmland near Chalgrove in 2003 provides proof that a man named Domitianus claimed to be emperor in the early 270s CE. It was fused in a mass of nearly five thousand coins within a partially intact Roman jar.

A pear-shaped Japanese bottle with a vibrant and highly reflective green glaze. There are also hints of yellow and blue

Flambé glazes such as this require high-firing temperatures and the exact results are not entirely controllable. They rely on many factors such as the thickness of the glaze application and the kiln’s atmosphere.

🍐 Pear-shaped bottle. EA1989.13

A pear-shaped Japanese bottle with a vibrant and highly reflective green glaze. There are also hints of yellow and blue

🍐This beautiful pear-shaped porcelain bottle from Japan is covered in a distinctive green flambé glaze.

It was made by Ishiguro Kōkō of the Sumida Pottery in Tokyo, named after the nearby Sumida River.

A watercolour drawing of an elderberry leaf and fruit with dark blue/black berries

After studying at the South Kensington School of Design, Morris took over the embroidery section of her father’s company, Morris & Co, in 1885. From this point, almost all new designs produced by the company were by May and her father’s assistant John Henry Dearl.

🌿WA1941.108.162
🌿WA1941.108.161