6 



BRITISH MUSEUM 



were shown in connexion with the exhibition at Burhngton House. 

 The entire Loan Collection of Prints was shown in the autumn at 

 Leamington. An exhibition of Chinese paintings was shown from 

 June to the end of the year. In the Department of Egyptian and 

 Assyrian Antiquities there Were exhibitions of objects from the 

 excavations at Ur by the British Museum and the University Museum of 

 Pennsylvania ; from those by Dr. Campbell Thompson and Mr. 

 Hutchinson at Nineveh ; and from those by Mr. Guy Brunton at 

 Badari. 



The total number of objects added to the collections in 1930 was 

 385,020, a decrease of 56,758 on the figures for the previous year, 

 entirely accounted for by a decrease in periodicals and newspapers 

 counterbalancing an increase in this item reported last year. 



The figures for the several Departments were as follows : — 

 Printed Books : 



Books and Pamphlets ... ... ... ... 36,140 



Serials and Parts of Volumes 



Maps and Atlases ... 



Music 



Newspapers (single numbers) 



Miscellaneous 

 Manuscripts ... 



Oriental Printed Books and MSS 

 Prints and Drawings 

 Prints and Drawings (Oriental) 

 Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities 

 Greek and Roman Antiquities 

 British and Mediaeval Antiquities 

 Ceramics and Ethnography 

 Coins and Medals 



103,627 



1,056 



8,593 



218,101 



2,165 



731 



2,068 



2,920 



299 



2,762 



67 



1,032 



2,236 



3,223 



385,020 



Of the two remarkable illuminated MSS., the Luttrell Psalter and 

 the Book of Hours of John, Duke of Bedford, mentioned in last year's 

 report, the former had already been secured before the end of the year. 

 The Bedford Hours remained in suspense, but, at the last moment 

 before the expiry of the term named by Mr. Pierpont Morgan, to whose 

 unexampled munificence the opportunity of acquiring it was due, the 

 necessary amount (£33,000) was raised. These two books, thanks 

 chiefly to special grants from H.M. Government and the National 

 Art-Collections Fund, but also to innumerable subscriptions ranging 

 from £1,000 to 2s. 6d., are now the property of the nation. They put 

 into the shade all other recent acquisitions, which are fully described 

 and in the more important cases illustrated in the British Museum 

 Quarterly (2s. a number). Some of these accessions may now be 

 mentioned : — 

 In the Department of Printed Books. 



Early printed books : Ovid, Metamorphoses, printed by Andreas 

 Portiha, at Parma, 1480, apparently as part of an edition of the whole 

 works of Ovid which was not completed ; Michael de Ungaria (Michael 

 of Ongar ?), Sermones Universales, printed in N. France, about 1485 ; 

 Nicolaus Spinellus, Lectura super tribus libris codicis, printed by 

 Cristophorus de Canibus, Pavia, 1491 ; Vocabularius utriusque juris, 

 printed by Jean de Vingh, Lyons, 1499. Among sixteenth century 



