6 BRITISH MUSEUM. 



Among the accessions of the year there is no one which over- 

 shadows the rest as the statuette of Socrates did in 1925 ; but there 

 are several highly important acquisitions which deserve special men- 

 tion. They have been described and ilkistrated, with others, in a new 

 publication, The British Museum Quarterly. Most noteworthy, perhaps, 

 are Michael Angelo's cartoon for the Adam of the Sistine chapel, 

 which was purchased with the aid of the National Art -Collections 

 Fund ; tlie unique impression of Prince Rupert's mezzotint of a 

 woman's head ; the remarkable hoard of Chinese silver vessels of the 

 T'ang period ; the enamelled gold Byzantine reliquary of the twelfth 

 century, and the ivory triptych of English workmanship, made for 

 Bishop Grandisson of Exeter in the fourteenth century. 



Considered by Departments, the principal acquisitions may be 

 classified as follows : — 



The Department of Printed Books received a further selection of 

 fourteen volumes from the Britwell Library, by the gift of Mr. S. R. 

 Christie-Miller ; four unique Spanish incunabula, from Toledo and 

 Seville, presented by Sir Leicester Harmsworth, Bart., Mr. A. Chester 

 Beatty, Mr. C. S. Gulbenkian, Mr. C. V. Sale, and Mr. W. H. Woodward : 

 a unique Sarum Book of Hours printed bj^ P. Pigouchet at Paris in 

 1494 ; and a " graingerised " copy of Clarke and McArthur's Life of 

 Nelson, incorporating the Nelson papers collected by A. M. Broadley, 

 bequeathed by the late Marquess Curzon of Kedleston. 



The Department of Manuscripts acquired a Bull of the English 

 Pope, Adrian IV., with autograph subscription, attestations, and seal 

 addressed to a Benedictine nunnery at Neasham, in Durham ; a volume 

 of English sermons of the fourteenth century, incorporating (without 

 notice) considerable passages of alliterative verse ; and Barron Field's 

 Life of Wordsworth (in MS.), to which are attached several instructive 

 comments by Wordsworth himself. The Department also received 

 two interesting manuscripts on indefinite loan; one being the Antarctic 

 Journal of Dr. E. Wilson, Capt. Scott's companion to the South Pole, 

 deposited by his widow, and the other a copy of C. M. Doughty's 

 poem, Mansoul, with extensive manuscript alterations and additions 

 by the author, dei30sited by Mr. R. C. Calvert. 



The acquisitions of the Department of Oriental Printed Books and 

 Manuscripts make less appeal to the general public, but mention is due 

 to a Persian and two Turkish MSS. presented by Mr. A. Chester Beatty, 

 a frequent benefactor of the Museum. 



In the Department of Prints and Drawings valuable and interesting 

 accessions have been numerous. To the period of the Renaissance 

 belong a number of German " dotted " prints ; the splendid study by 

 Michael Angelo for the " Adam " of the Sistine Chapel, already men- 

 tioned ; a cartoon by Raphael or one of his pupils for the Madonna del 

 Divino Amore ; and two small drawings by Hans Holbein the younger. 

 From the two succeeding centuries come the unique impression of the 

 mezzotint by Prince Rupert ; a hithero unknown first state of Hollar's 

 *' Prospect of London and Westminster, taken from Lambeth," showing 

 the city (including Old St. Paul's) as it was before the Fire ; a book of 

 sketches by Flaxman, presented by Lt.-Gen. Sir A. Hunter- Weston ; 

 and a number of fine examples of French engraving of the eighteenth 

 century. Later work is represented by a group of portraits of Napo- 

 leon and his contemporaries from the Crawford collection ; a fine 

 landscape drawing by A. G. Decamps ; a set of drawings by Constantin 

 Guys ; 910 small engravings of the English 19th century school, 



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