London Museum
More than 14,000 ancient Roman artefacts
London Museum holds the world’s largest collection of objects from one city, with some seven million artefacts spanning some 450,000 years of history, from palaeolithic flints to Bronze Age weaponry, Roman pottery, Jacobean cutlery, Victorian clothing and everything in between. It has been through several evolutions: having been founded in 1976 as the Museum of London, bringing together the collections of the City Corporation at the Guildhall Museum and the London Museum, it was located by the London Wall just by the Tower of London until 2022. That year, it closed its doors before its move to a new site at Smithfield, whose permanent galleries are due to open next year (the museum’s temporary exhibition space is slated to open two years after that). While it waits to reopen, the museum’s already massive collection has been added to by Bloomberg Philanthropies to the tune of some 14,000 Roman artefacts, along with a donation of £20m. The gift comprises objects that were uncovered by archaeologists during the construction of Bloomberg’s London headquarters in 2012–14, and includes fragments of pottery, kitchen utensils, leather shoes, writing tablets and more.
Roman carved bone amulets worn by the military. Photo: © London Museum
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Vanitas Still Life (c. 1690), Maria Van Oosterwijck
The heyday of the floral still life was in the 17th- and 18th-century Netherlands, and painters such as Willem van Aelst, Rachel Ruysch and Maria van Oosterwijck were the foremost exponents of this deceptively complex genre. In 2023 the Rijksmuseum acquired a vanitas still life by van Oosterwijck, which it has now put on show after a period of research and restoration. An artist who counted among her clients the Sun King, Cosimo III de’ Medici and Emperor Leopold I of Austria, van Oosterwick was extremely popular in her lifetime. This painting, produced in around 1690, centres on three objects: an elaborate floral bouquet, and a sunflower and a skull that appear to be staring each other down. Only 30 or so of the artist’s works are in existence today, largely because she painted slowly and meticulously. That dedication to care and precision is on full view here – look, for instance, at the portrait miniature towards the bottom left of the canvas, or the intricate writing on the stone tablet.
Vanitas Still Life (c. 1690), Maria van Oosterwijck. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
National Portrait Gallery, London
Two works by Sonia Boyce and Hew Locke
The National Portrait Gallery in London has established a new fund, Collecting the Now, which is dedicated to collecting contemporary works by major artists over the next three years. The fund has been made possible thanks to a £1m donation by the Bukhman Foundation, set up by the London-based entrepreneurs Anastasia and Igor Bukhman. The NPG has also announced two acquisitions: a mixed-media self-portrait by Sonia Boyce from 1987 and Souvenir 17 (Albert Edward, Prince of Wales) (2024) by Hew Locke, a marble bust of Queen Victoria’s eldest son that the artist has draped in metal ornaments and colourful fabrics. Perhaps surprisingly, these are the first works by Boyce and Locke to enter the museum’s collection; Locke’s work is now on display.
Souvenir 17 (Albert Edward, Prince of Wales) (2024), Hew Locke. Courtesy Hew Locke/Hales London and New York; © Hew Locke; All Rights Reserved, DACS 2025
Museo d’Arte Sorlini, Carzago Riviera
La Vecchia popolana (c. 1680–90), Pietro Bellotti
The Museo d’Arte Sorlini, the 17th-century palace in Brescia that houses the collection of mostly Venetian artworks gathered by the entrepreneur Luciano Sorlini (1925–2015), has acquired a painting by the baroque painter Pietro Bellotti. The work, La Vecchia popolana (‘the old commoner’), is a striking genre painting produced in the late 17th century, depicting an elderly woman dressed in rags, clutching a staff and a rosary, with a boy by her side. It was not known about until 1940, when an article in the Burlington Magazine brought the painting to light, printing a photographic reproduction of it from the 19th century. It was Stefano Sorlini, president of the Sorlini Foundation, who in the last few years tracked the painting down and found it in the hands of private collectors.
The Old Commoner (c. 1670–90), Pietro Bellotti. Museo d’Arte Sorlini, Carzago Riviera
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond
Two painted Limoges enamels
In the 12th century, enamel workshops began to spring up in and around in the city of Limoges in central France, which would become famous for its enamel wares and, from the 18th century onwards, for its porcelain production. The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond – which has a particularly notable collection of decorative arts, including jewelled Fabergé objects, ancient Greek and Roman artefacts, art deco and art nouveau design and more – has acquired two Limoges enamels from Galerie Duponchel in Paris. One is a grisaille plaque depicting the god Apollo that was produced in the early 17th century and based on an engraving by the mannerist artist Hendrick Goltzius; the other is a black salt cellar decorated with intricate mythological scenes, attributed to the 16th-century painter Pierre Reymond, who managed one of the most prolific enamel workshops in Limoges.
Apollo (c. 1592–1640), unknown artist, Limoges. Photo: Travis Fullerton; © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts