Museum Secrets

Lockdown is slowly lifting, and this week, the pubs will be opening outdoors again in Oxford. To get us in the right frame of mind, curator Matthew Winterbottom takes us on a tour of historical drinki...

9 Huhti 20216min

Lots of objects in the Ashmolean have got secrets hidden under their surface. Join the Ashmolean’s Conservation Research Fellow and colour detective Tea Ghigo, as she looks at a special bookcase with ...

2 Huhti 202112min

Spring is in the air, and families of ducks are out in force in Oxford. Paul Collins, the Ashmolean Museum's Jaleh Hearn Curator of the Ancient Near East, introduces us to ancient duck with a cheerful...

26 Maalis 20219min

It's been a really hard first few months to 2021, so here at the Ashmolean, we've been putting together another series of Museum Secrets to cheer us all up. Join Lucie Dawkins for more bite-sized adve...

25 Maalis 20211min

Shelagh Vainker, the Curator of Chinese Art, introduces us to Miao Jiahui, the ‘ghost painter’ of the Chinese Empress Dowager. The Ashmolean holds a rare painting of some peonies, in which she came ou...

15 Tammi 20217min

Catherine Whistler, Keeper of the Western Art Department, introduces us to Titian’s Triumph of Love, an amusing painting which hides a secret: it was once the cover of a portrait of one of the most fo...

14 Tammi 202110min

Podcast host Lucie Dawkins takes a look at John Singer Sargent’s drawing of Vernon Lee in the Ashmolean Collection. Vernon was a genderqueer trailblazer who invented the word ‘empathy’ in the English ...

13 Tammi 20217min

Jim Harris, Andrew W Mellon Teaching Curator at the Ashmolean, tells us the story of a silver teapot hiding a rude joke underneath it. Please be advised in advance that this episode contains an explet...

12 Tammi 202112min