FOR ALL STUDIOUS AND CURIOUS PERSONS

If truth is not to be found on the shelves of the British Museum, where, I asked myself, picking up a notebook and a pencil, is truth?

Virginia Woolf, A Room  of One’s Own 

When the British Museum first opened its doors to the public on 15 January 1759, it was housed in a seventeenth-century mansion, Montague House, in Bloomsbury on the site of today’s building. Entry was free and given to ‘all studious and curious persons’.

Today, 255 years later, I was one of the very last visitors to leave at closing time. I offer here a pithy reflection to mark this particular milestone in the Museum’s history.

The original proposed ticket for admission to view the Museum’s
collection, located in the Trustees Original Papers of 1757.

Postscript

Don’t miss Part Two of ‘To Make a Beginning’, published earlier today.

TO MAKE A BEGINNING, PART TWO

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.

Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island 

There is something of the Michelangelo in this man.

Balzac on Daumier 

A new short film is imminent, to mark the 255th anniversary of the British Museum which opened to the public on 15 January 1759. Stay tuned!

British Museum Great Court. Photo by EP

TO MAKE A BEGINNING

In every phenomenon the beginning remains always the most notable moment.

Thomas Carlyle 

Part One of a New Year’s reflection:

Part Two coming soon …

A very happy New Year to you all!

New Year’s rose. Photo by EP