The Covid Diaries 86 – Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

An illustrated visit to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. In which I admire the building immensely, but have trouble paying attention until the end.

Cambridge In The Quiet Season

The last installment on the blog was this trip out to IWM Duxford near Cambridge. My partner and I recently spent a few days in Cambridge, a recreation of sorts of our trip to Oxford in July last year. A key difference was that, coming out of the first lockdown, it was exciting to be able to do anything at all. A year on (and as we did this trip before 19 July), the fact that much of Cambridge (or at least the University) remained closed felt more fatiguing. Particularly in a week of unsettled weather, where you want to have some indoor activities up your sleeve.

One thing we were able to do was book tickets for museums. Thank goodness for museums, which have kept me sane during the pandemic! Today’s post is about the Fitzwilliam Museum, and the next couple of posts will cover other museums we were able to get tickets for. Onwards now to find out what we saw there!

The Fitzwilliam Museum – A Brief Overview

The Fitzwilliam Museum is part of a vast network of museums and heritage institutions managed by Cambridge University. This also includes Kettle’s Yard and the local Botanic Garden. The Fitzwilliam itself was founded after Viscount Fitzwilliam of Merrion bequeathed his works of art and library to the University in 1816. There are a lot of wonderful Old Masters from this initial bequest, including works by Canaletto and Titian.

The University held a competition to design a building to house the collection. They selected a neo-classical effort by George Basevi which we still see today. The permanent museum opened in 1848, 32 years after the initial bequest. The collection has not remained static since then but has continued to grow. Today it covers a time period from ancient cultures to contemporary art, and themes including fine art, archaeology, and decorative art and design.

Visiting the Fitzwilliam

When we visited in July 2021, visitors required a pre-booked ticket in order to visit. A one-way system was in place, with all areas of the museum accessible. The one-way system did mean, however, that the incredibly grand entrance and staircase (fourth image above) came towards the middle of the visit. Normally there are two entrances available; this one or a more discreet side entrance which was the only one available to us.

The Fitzwilliam Museum is very much a traditional museum. Art and objects displayed nicely, with accompanying information panels. The curators do, however, introduce contemporary works in dialogue with the more traditional collection. See for example Action 125 by Reza Aramesh juxtaposed against St Sebastian in the top set of images above. But overall, visiting the Fitzwilliam is much more pleasant than challenging.

That is not a criticism – the art collection is top notch, and I’m sure there is a lot you can learn from the decorative arts on display. I was suffering a little from museum fatigue by the time I got downstairs, so I glanced at the vast holdings of pottery and ceramics, but didn’t linger. The archaeological collections caught my eye a little more, so I did take more of that in. It’s the sort of museum that you would have strong memories of being taken to as a child by a parent or grandparent, having a favourite exhibit and being over-awed by the whole thing.

Final Thoughts

There is a strong tradition of good regional museums in the UK, mostly telling the story of wealth distribution in this country. Aristocratic bequests like this one were later superseded by Victorian philanthropists as I talked about here. Amongst these museums you would expect Cambridge and Oxford to have some of the best, and the Fitzwilliam bears out that theory. In the space of a reasonably-sized building, you can see artworks as good as some in the National Gallery, mummies and other antiquities like the British Museum, and more besides. And like those institutions, it’s all free.

So under ideal circumstances I might have wanted to add a bit of variety to my holiday and do something different, but under Covid measures I could have done worse than the Fitzwilliam. I enjoyed my morning here, and then relaxed in the cafe with some lovely cake and coffee. Bliss.

On its own merits: 3/5
Implementing Covid measures: 4/5

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