16 ACCOUNTS, ETC., OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 



them of the highest importance, by Diirer, Holbein, Canale, 

 Rembrandt and other Dutch masters, Fran9ois Clouet and his 

 school, Gainsborough,- Turner, Constable, and De Wint. The 

 Wegener collection of Chinese paintings, acquired largely by 

 the subscriptions of friends, gave the Museum a series of 

 admirable specimens of Eastern Art, which it would be hard to 

 match out of China. Eleven highly finished drawings by D. G. 

 Rossetti were presented by Mrs. Gillum, in pursuance of the 

 will of her husband, the late Col. Gillum ; and the National 

 Art-Collections Fund (among other benefactions) secured for 

 the Museum six fine designs bj' Alfred Stevens. Under present 

 conditions of prices of works of art, it is only through such 

 liberality of private benefactors that the British Museum can 

 hope to maintain its position in the first rank of existing 

 collections. The most important purchase during the year 

 (apart from the part-purchase of the Wegener Collection) was 

 that of a large number of etchings by the late Sir F, Seymour 

 Haden. 



The Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities 

 similarly owes its most important accession to private generosity. 

 This was a very fine papyrus roll, 122 feet in length, containing 

 the Book of the Dead in hieratic characters, written about 

 980 B.C., and illustrated with pen and ink drawings of great 

 delicacy and spirit. This fine volume, which contains several 

 new texts, and is of considerable interest for the history of 

 Egyptian religion, was presented by Mrs. Greenfield. The 

 more important purchases of Egyptian antiquities include a 

 very large foundation-deposit brick of Rameses II. from 

 Bubastis ; a fine granite table of offerings of unusual character; 

 and an exceptionally good stone sarcophagus of the Ptolemaic 

 period, inscribed with religious texts. Among the Assyrian 

 antiquities acquired during the year are 73 well preserved 

 letters and other documents of the first dynasty of Babylon 

 (about 2000 B.C.) ; fragments of two cylinders of Sennacherib; 

 and several fine seals of the Sumerian period. 



The Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities has made 

 a considerable number of interesting acquisitions, the most 

 notable of which is a fine sepulchral relief of the fourth 

 century B.C., from Attica, the principal figure being in unusually 

 good preservation. A fragment of a similar relief contains a 

 very fine head of a girl. Among smaller objects are an ivory 

 sistrum, or rattle, of unusual shape ; a tiny silver statuette of 

 a lion ; an early Grseco-Iberian statuette of a deer ; and several 

 fine engraved mirror-cases. Several good examples of vases 

 were also added to the collections. Dr. A. J. Evans presented 

 some inscribed tablets and pottery from Crete ; and Prof. 

 R. C. Bosanquet plaster casts of two important Minoan vases 

 and of the remarkable inscribed disc found at Phaistos. 



The Department of British and Mediaeval Antiquities 

 and Ethnography has benefited, as usual, by the generosity of 



