Former name | New Walk Museum |
---|---|
Established | 1849 |
Location | New Walk, Leicester, England |
Coordinates | 52°37′44″N1°07′40″W / 52.628954°N 1.127765°W |
Curator | Mark Evans |
Architect | Joseph Hansom |
Owner | Leicester City Council |
Nearest car park | On site (no charge) |
Website | Leicester Museum & Art Gallery |
The Leicester Museum & Art Gallery (until 2020, New Walk Museum and Art Gallery) is a museum on New Walk in Leicester, England, not far from the city centre. [1] It opened in 1849 as one of the first public museums in the United Kingdom. [2] Leicester Museum & Art Gallery contains displays of science, history and art, both international and local. The original building was designed by Joseph Hansom, designer of the hansom cab. [3] It has been expanded several times, most recently in 2011.
Permanent exhibits include dinosaurs, an Egyptian area, minerals of Leicestershire, the first Charnia fossil identified nearby, and a wildspace area featuring stuffed animals from around the world.
Leicester Museum & Art Gallery has a significant collection of extinct lifeforms. Two Mesozoic reptile skeletons are permanently on display — a cetiosaur found in Rutland, and a plesiosaur from Barrow upon Soar. [1]
The Rutland Dinosaur, affectionately nicknamed George, is a specimen of Cetiosaurus oxoniensis. The 15 metres (49 ft) dinosaur, which is among the most complete sauropod skeletons in the world, was discovered in June 1968, in the Williamson Cliffe quarry near Little Casterton in Rutland. The skeletal remains have been in the museum since 1975; the majority of the bones in the display are replicas of the originals, which are too fragile to be used. [4] [5] The Rutland Dinosaur featured on an episode of Blue Peter , and was opened by Blue Peter's Janet Ellis in 1985.
The Barrow Kipper, named after the flattened fish, is a skeleton of an unidentified plesiosaur discovered in Barrow upon Soar in 1851. Originally classified as Plesiosaurus macrocephalus, it was later reclassified as Rhomaleosaurus megacephalus. However, according to Adam Smith and Gareth Dyke (2008), the fossil is actually of another, unnamed genus. [6]
In September 2011, the museum expanded its Dinosaur Gallery, reorganizing fossils, adding a new room, and modifying the gallery itself. The new Dinosaur Gallery, which predominantly features extinct marine reptiles, was opened by David Attenborough. [7] [1] The "star attractions" of the new gallery include the aforementioned Rutland cetiosaur, Charnia and plesiosaur fossils, as well as a Leedsichthys fossil and a piece of the Barwell Meteorite.
The museum holds a specimen of international importance, the Charnia fossil. [8] It is the first fossil that was ever described that came from undoubted Precambrian rocks, which until this point had been thought to be too early for large forms of life. [9] The object in the museum – "Leicester's fossil celebrity" [10] – is a holotype, that is, the actual physical example from which the species was first identified and formally described. Charnia masoni was named after Roger Mason, who discovered it at Charnwood Forest in 1957, when he was a schoolboy, and who went on to a career as an academic geologist. He acknowledges, and the museum's Charnia display explains, that the fossil had been discovered a year earlier by a schoolgirl, Tina Negus, "but no one took her seriously". [11] [12]
The museum has a permanent Egyptology exhibit. The museum holds four Egyptian mummies, named Pa-nesit-tawy, Pe-iuy, Bes-en-Mut and Ta-Bes. [13] Pe-iuy was the first to enter the museum's collection being purchased in 1859 for £45. [14] Bes-en-Mut and Ta-Bes were taken out of Egypt by John Mason Cook the son of Thomas Cook in around 1880. He later gifted them to the museum. [14]
Pa-nesit-tawy was the last being donated to the museum by the Huntingdon Literary and Scientific society in 1928. [14] Living in 600BC and buried in Thebes he was gifted in 1869 to Edward VII then Prince of Wales. [14] Edward VII regifted Pa-nesit-tawy to Oliver George Paulet Montagu who in turn gifted him to the Huntingdon Literary and Scientific society. [14]
The Egyptology section of the museum has undergone an expansion, covering life in Egypt in greater detail, as well as a section focused on death in Egypt, which is where the four mummies are held. The artefacts came mainly from Europeans visiting Egypt during the revival of interest in Egyptology which occurred during the 19th century. The capacity of the galleries have been greatly expanded as of 2018. The museum holds a collection of over 400 objects from the Ancient Egyptian era, but has only, until recently, been able to display around a third of these. The new gallery has allowed for these to be shown to the public. [15] Since 2020 the galley has been home to a statue of Husband and wife, Sethmose and Isisnofret purchased from the then bankrupt Thomas Cook Group. [16]
The museum has a stuffed polar bear, Peppy, the mascot of Fox's Glacier Mints. [17] This is held in a collection of taxidermy animals, which have been collected from areas around the world. The exhibit includes a number of temperate specimens, as well as polar and savannah specimens.
The museum holds the UK's largest collection of German Expressionist art. [18] These paintings, including works by George Grosz, Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee, were smuggled out of Nazi Germany before World War II. [19] The Nazis condemned the work of these painters – see the 1937 Degenerate Art Exhibition. Hans Hess, son of the German-Jewish industrialist and art collector, Alfred Hess, was assistant curator at the museum.
In 2007, more than 100 pieces of Picasso ceramic art went on display at the museum, having been donated by Richard Attenborough. [20]
On the first floor of the museum is an exhibition area that changes periodically. Recent exhibits have included a display focusing on the search for the remains of Richard III, a Wallace and Gromit display, and Spirits of War to Hands of Peace, an exhibit of paintings and sculpture on the horrors of war and the power of peace. [21]
As part of the National Portrait Gallery's 'Coming Home' project, a portrait of Richard III was on temporary display during the summer of 2019, following the reinterment of the king in Leicester Cathedral in 2015. [22]
The museum was relaunched in August 2020, after a lengthy closure in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The museum reopened under a new name: Leicester Museum & Art Gallery, chosen "to demonstrate that it is Leicester's leading museum, and to help people from outside the city if they are searching online for Leicester museums." [23]
Charnia is an extinct genus of frond-like lifeforms belonging to the Ediacaran biota with segmented, leaf-like ridges branching alternately to the right and left from a zig-zag medial suture. The genus Charnia was named for Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire, England, where the first fossilised specimen was found. Charnia is significant because it was the first Precambrian fossil to be recognized as such.
The Natural History Museum in London is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. The Natural History Museum's main frontage, however, is on Cromwell Road.
Charnwood Forest is a hilly tract in north-western Leicestershire, England, bounded by Leicester, Loughborough and Coalville. The area is undulating, rocky and picturesque, with barren areas. It also has some extensive tracts of woodland; its elevation is generally 600 feet (180 m) and upwards, the area exceeding this height being about 6,100 acres (25 km2). The highest point, Bardon Hill, is 912 feet (278 m). On its western flank lies an abandoned coalfield, with Coalville and other former mining villages, now being regenerated and replanted as part of the National Forest. The M1 motorway, between junctions 22 and 23, cuts through Charnwood Forest.
World Museum is a large museum in Liverpool, England which has extensive collections covering archaeology, ethnology and the natural and physical sciences. Special attractions include the Natural History Centre and a planetarium. Entry to the museum is free. The museum is part of National Museums Liverpool.
The Carnegie Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was founded by Pittsburgh-based industrialist Andrew Carnegie in 1896. Housing some 22 million specimens, the museum features one of the finest paleontological and entomological collections in the world.
Little Casterton is a small village and civil parish in Rutland, England. The population of the civil parish at the 2001 census was 148, increasing to 218 at the 2011 census. It is about two miles (3 km) north of Stamford on a minor road that runs to the south of the River Gwash between Great Casterton and Ryhall.
Swithland Wood and The Brand is a 87.9 hectares biological Site of Special Scientific Interest south of Woodhouse Eaves in Leicestershire. Swithland Wood is a Nature Conservation Review site, Grade II. The Brand is designated a Precambrian site in the Geological Conservation Review, but the dating has been changed due to the discovery of trace fossils from the succeeding Cambrian period.
Pelorosaurus is a genus of titanosauriform sauropod dinosaur. Remains referred to Pelorosaurus date from the Early Cretaceous period, about 140-125 million years ago, and have been found in England and Portugal. Thomas Holtz estimated its length at 24 meters.
Cetiosaurus meaning 'whale lizard', from the Greek keteios/κήτειος meaning 'sea monster' and sauros/σαυρος meaning 'lizard', is a genus of herbivorous sauropod dinosaur from the Middle Jurassic Period, living about 168 million years ago in what is now Britain.
Cetiosauriscus is a genus of sauropod dinosaur that lived between 166 and 164 million years ago during the Callovian in what is now England. A herbivore, Cetiosauriscus had – by sauropod standards – a moderately long tail, and longer forelimbs, making them as long as its hindlimbs. It has been estimated as about 15 m (49 ft) long and between 4 and 10 t in weight.
The Michael C. Carlos Museum is an art museum located in Atlanta on the historic quadrangle of Emory University's main campus. The Carlos Museum has the largest ancient art collections in the Southeast, including objects from ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Near East, Africa and the ancient Americas. The collections are housed in a Michael Graves designed building which is open to the public.
The Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center is a fossil museum primarily exhibiting fossil organisms of North America's Late Cretaceous including dinosaurs, pterosaurs, marine reptiles, and fish. The museum includes a fossil preparation lab and a large gift shop. Live tours are delivered by visitor experience guides highlighting the history of the individual specimens as well as the paleontology of the fossil species they represent. The RMDRC is headquarters to its parent company, Triebold Paleontology Incorporated.
Roger Mason is an English geologist. He is known as the discoverer of the original type fossil for species Charnia masoni of the genus Charnia. He is now a professor at the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan, China.
The Yorkshire Museum is a museum in York, England. It was opened in 1830, and has five permanent collections, covering biology, geology, archaeology, numismatics and astronomy.
Bolton Art Gallery, Library & Museum is a public museum, art gallery, library and aquarium in the town of Bolton, England, owned by Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council. The museum, Bolton Museum, is housed within the grade II listed Le Mans Crescent near Bolton Town Hall and shares its main entrance with the library, Bolton Central Library, in a purpose-built civic centre.
Attenborosaurus is an extinct genus of pliosaurid from the Early Jurassic of Dorset, England. The type species is A. conybeari. The genus is named after David Attenborough, the species after William Conybeare.
Fossil Detectives is a 2008 BBC Television documentary series in which presenter Hermione Cockburn travels across Great Britain exploring fossil sites and discovering the latest scientific developments in geology and palaeontology. The show is a spin-off of Coast.
Paleontology in Kansas refers to paleontological research occurring within or conducted by people from the U.S. state of Kansas. Kansas has been the source of some of the most spectacular fossil discoveries in US history. The fossil record of Kansas spans from the Cambrian to the Pleistocene. From the Cambrian to the Devonian, Kansas was covered by a shallow sea. During the ensuing Carboniferous the local sea level began to rise and fall. When sea levels were low the state was home to richly vegetated deltaic swamps where early amphibians and reptiles lived. Seas expanded across most of the state again during the Permian, but on land the state was home to thousands of different insect species. The popular pterosaur Pteranodon is best known from this state. During the early part of the Cenozoic era Kansas became a savannah environment. Later, during the Ice Age, glaciers briefly entered the state, which was home to camels, mammoths, mastodons, and saber-teeth. Local fossils may have inspired Native Americans to regard some local hills as the homes of sacred spirit animals. Major scientific discoveries in Kansas included the pterosaur Pteranodon and a fossil of the fish Xiphactinus that died in the act of swallowing another fish.
Ancient Echoes Interpretive Centre is a community-based museum and interpretive centre, founded in 1994, that educates, conserves, protects, and promotes the history, the peoples and the assets of the land forming the Eagle Creek Valley and Coal Mine Ravine located in Herschel, Saskatchewan, Canada.