Collection: UCL Culture

Collection-level records:

• Collection history (Collection development policy)

  Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology

  The collections are largely based on the work of W. M. Flinders Petrie, his colleagues and successors, from their excavations in the Nile Valley from 1880 to 1983. The objects from excavations include: those from the British School of Archaeology in Egypt (previously the Egyptian Research Account) which was disbanded, and all its assets and copyright vested in the Department of Egyptology, UCL, in 1953; and from the Egypt Exploration Society (previously the Egypt Exploration Fund) which still undertakes work in Egypt to the present day. Unprovenanced material was acquired by Petrie in Egypt by purchase. The collections cover prehistoric, dynastic, Greek and Roman and, to a lesser extent, the Islamic periods. The Nile Valley, especially Upper Egypt, is the main focus, with some oasis and desert materials.

  Grant Museum of Zoology & Comparative Anatomy

  The collection was founded in 1827 to allow research and teaching of comparative anatomy.

  Grant was the first Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy in England and immediately began to amass specimens and material for dissection which form the basis of the museum today. The collection continued to expand as successive curators acquired additional material to aid in teaching and to facilitate research such as the collections of E.Ray Lankester, D.M.S Watson, J.P.Hill and Francis Musset.

  UCL Art museum

  The collections came to UCL primarily through gift (initiated by the Flaxman gift in 1847), bequest and through prizes awarded for student work by the Slade School of Fine Art. The collection includes old master prints and drawings, Flaxman plaster models and drawings and the Slade’s prize winning drawings and paintings.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date: 2018

  Licence: CC BY-NC

• Collection overview (Collection development policy)

  Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology

  UCL Petrie Museum houses around 80,600 Egyptian and Sudanese objects dating from the Palaeolithic period through to the present day.

  The collection is a Designated Collection of National Significance. As a reference, research and teaching collection, the collection is of international importance to the study of Egyptian Archaeology and the history of Archaeology in Egypt.

  Grant Museum of Zoology & Comparative Anatomy

  The Grant Museum contains around 68,000 zoological or zoology-related objects from across the world and representing half a billion years of animal diversity.

  The Grant Museum not only represents the history of biology and biological teaching at UCL, but it has also become a ‘museum of museums’ as material from other London institutions ended up at UCL either as transferal’s to UCL zoologists or when other London Universities closed down their zoological collections.

  A particular strength of the Grant Museum is therefore the comprehensive comparative anatomy collection which continues to be used widely in higher education teaching at UCL as well as by internal and external researchers.

  The collection is now used to support teaching in a wide and increasingly diverse range of subjects and provide specimens for a diverse topics of research uses. The collection is also used to support public engagement with UCL research, through its use in exhibitions, events and activities.

  UCL Art museum

  UCL Art Museum contains the paintings, sculpture, and works on paper owned by University College London. These comprise holdings of over 10,000 objects. The collection contains European, Japanese and North American art from the 15^th century to the present day, comprising paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, books and electronic media.

  These core collections are of the highest quality. The prints and drawings collections are composed of three main gifts and bequests, the Grote Bequest (1872), the Vaughan Bequest (1900) and the Sherborn Gift (1936). These are significant in themselves as examples of collecting practice, and include individual items of international significance (works by Durer, Altdorfer, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Beck, Huber, Heintz, Turner and Constable). Taken as a whole they form a first rate study collection of national significance.

  The Slade collections form a unique document of English art practice in the twentieth century, illustrating the period with a thoroughness not matched by other national art schools. Once again, individual items are of undisputed importance and value and the collection as a whole is an archive of art education history of national importance.

  The Flaxman models and drawings at UCL form the largest extant archive of original material relating to this important sculptor and are of international importance.

  The UCL Art Museum are also responsible for all other fine art objects owned by UCL, including nineteenth century statuary, portraits of UCL officers, and many prints and drawings relating to the Wilkins building.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date: 2018

  Licence: CC BY-NC