Ashmolean Museum

‘The Alfred Jewel’, in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, England. This cloisonné enamel portrait, mounted in crystal, is believed to be part of the treasure of Alfred the Great, king of Wessex 871–899. The jewel is in the Carolingian style, showing a revival of interest in Roman work.

Museum of art and antiquities in Oxford, England, founded in 1683 to house the collections given to Oxford University by the historian and antiquary Elias Ashmole. Its collections include European, Near Eastern, and Oriental art and archaeology; paintings and drawings by Raphael, Michelangelo, and other Renaissance artists; watercolours by J M W Turner; and works by Pre-Raphaelite and major British and European artists of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. It was the first museum in Britain to open to the public.

The original collection included natural and artificial curiosities left to Ashmole by John Tradescant in 1659. For two centuries it was housed in the old Ashmolean building in Broad Street, Oxford. About 1860 the natural history exhibits went to the University Museum and the manuscripts, books, and coins to the Bodleian Library; in 1886 the ethnographic specimens went to the Pitt Rivers Museum. In 1894 the archaeological material, greatly expanded by the English archaeologist Arthur Evans, was moved to an extension of the galleries in Beaumont Street; in 1908 this joint institution was renamed the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology.

The museum also houses the King Alfred Jewel, made in the 9th century, probably for King Alfred and found near Athelney, Somerset in 1717; Guy Fawkes's lantern and other historical relics; and extensive series of ancient and modern coins and medals. The museum also has an important library.