Welcoming the world to the collections of the Ashmolean

An Van Camp is Curator of Northern European Art and Head of Digital Collections at the Ashmolean Museum. Here, she talks about her mission to share the Ashmolean’s collections online with new audiences both near and far, and the museum’s ambitious plans for the future.

‘The publication of our collections online has transformed how we can reach our visitors. Collections Online is a great tool for visitors, researchers, students and art lovers alike.’

– An Van Camp

A spectacular nest of three coffins containing the mummy of Djed-djehuty-iuef-ankh, c. 770–712 BC © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

The museum has a strong message: ‘Ashmolean for all’. We try to bring people who don’t feel confident about coming to museums through our doors. For me, sharing digital collections is a very inclusive way of achieving this.

An Van Camp, Head of Digital Collections and Curator of Northern European Art at Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

I am very passionate about digitising our collections. It’s really important for advancing research, but equally so for the enjoyment of people both locally and across the world. We need to keep building on it, which is a very exciting prospect.

At the moment we have just over 100,000 records in our online collections, which is amazing, and is why we have launched our annual appeal to raise funds for digitisation. Items range from paintings, ceramics and sculptures to textiles, musical instruments, prints and coins, and visitors can browse through timelines from 500,000 BC to the present day, or search for works relating to specific artists.

Some of the feedback we receive about our online collections is from people who want to locate an item that they know is held at the Ashmolean Museum, but isn’t online yet. So we know there is a real demand to see our collections online.

Left to right: Digitising the collections at the Ashmolean Museum; Model of the cat-goddess Bastet, Late Period (715–343 BC), part of the Egyptian collection; and The Constellations of Capricorn and Aquarius from The Wonders of Creation and the Oddities of Existence by Zakariya ibn Muhammad al-Qazwini, 16th–17th century © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

We would like to prioritise the digitisation of our Egyptian collection next. It’s world class and extensive with over 50,000 artefacts. A large part of it was excavated by the famous archaeologist Flinders Petrie and given to the museum via the Egypt Exploration Fund. An important part stems from the Predynastic Period, which dates from before the pharaohs, and is therefore of great interest. You can’t find this in any other museum in the world outside of Egypt.

St Jerome in his Study (1514), an engraving by Albrecht Dürer © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

People have also made real discoveries by looking at the museum’s vast Old Master Prints collection, part of which can be consulted on Collections Online. Every change an artist makes on the copper plate for a print is referred to as a new ‘state’. Differences are often obvious, but sometimes they might consist of a tiny dot that only a specialist will notice due to being so familiar with the detail.

For example, one online visitor was looking at our Albrecht Dürer prints and emailed me to say ‘Did you know that you have an impression of a really rare state? I’ve published a paper on it’ — so that was quite interesting!

Coins and prints — including printed bank notes — can tell you a lot about history and about society. They are so widely distributed and everyone uses them daily, rich or poor. They are very popular features on our website, but there are tens of thousands more coins and prints that we could add if we had the resource to do so.

Left to right: The presence of King Charles I in Oxford in 1642–6, during the English Civil War, is preserved in this remarkable coin, dated 1644, known as the Oxford Crown; James Paine, Architect, and his Son, James by Joshua Reynolds, 1764 © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

In the Collections Online area, new visitors can either search in free text or be guided by prompts to ‘Discover Objects’. Or you can simply browse the entire database by clicking on a timeline.

Rembrandt’s Portrait of an Old Man (Rembrandt’s father) c. 1627 © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

A search for ‘Rembrandt’ — very topical for us at the museum right now — reveals a timeline linking to drawings and prints by the artist, as well as works created by his students or made in his workshop. These include a unique portrait of Rembrandt’s father (left) by Rembrandt himself. The drawing features in our Young Rembrandt Exhibition (27 February to 7 June 2020).

Parallel to Collections Online, we have another web feature called Treasures: these are highlights of the Ashmolean presented in a more narrative way, from a curatorial perspective. This approach makes it easier for members of the public to access our collections, even if they can’t physically make it to the museum. It’s what I like to call ‘armchair travel’.

In the future, we’d like to present our online collections more thematically and even create virtual exhibitions — such as items relating to writing, transport, or food and drink. If items have featured in an exhibition and we have done all the research, written the label texts and perhaps even created a catalogue, we might as well share our insights digitally.

However, with thousands of database entries, our digital team has an epic task: we are fundraising at the moment to secure more resource to assist in the process of getting more of the museum’s collections online.

Roof tile in the form of a horse from 17th-century China © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

Our goal is to have 25% of the collection online this year (2020). We have about 10% of our collection online, so the entire museum is working hard at the moment to achieve our goal. This is why we need more resources and why we have launched the annual appeal. Ultimately, we hope to have all the collections in one place and make them cross-searchable, across cultures and across time.

Clockwise from top left: View of Paris by Night by Konstantin Alekseevich Korovin, after 1923; The cast for this sculpture was made from a marble sculpture — probably from the first century — of the so-called Laocoön group. The marble sculpture was found in Rome in 1506 and this cast acquired by the Ashmolean in 1933; Studies of Two Apostles for the Transfiguration, Raphael c. 1519–1520 © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

Help us to share the wonders of the Ashmolean

The Ashmolean is home to half a million years of human history and creativity. Help share its treasures with the world by supporting the Welcoming the World appeal, which aims to double the online collections by July 2020. Your support will underpin essential work to document, photograph and upload more than 100,000 paintings, prints, coins and artefacts to Collections Online. Find out more by clicking the link below.

Support the Ashmolean appeal