Our first collections were brought together more than 200 years ago and we’ve been adding to them ever since.
From art to archaeology, history to industry, the natural and the wider world, they are amongst the UK’s finest with many recognised as nationally and internationally important. They can be seen on display across all our museums, in our stores or online.
The Applied Art collection covers western ceramics and glass, silver, furniture and textiles from the 17th century until today. Since Bristol Museum & Art Gallery opened in 1905, there has been a particular emphasis on collecting local wares. Ceramics Bristol has one of the largest collections of English delftware, representing a major industry in and […]
Bristol Museum & Art Gallery’s Natural History collection is made up of about 650,000 specimens including taxidermy, skeletal material, shells, pinned invertebrates, pickled specimens and beautifully preserved pressed plants. These are complemented by a rare books library, field note books, archive documents and photographs. Built up by donations from local people, curators, and groups including […]
Bristol Museum & Art Gallery cares for several million archaeological objects of local, regional and national importance. The collection spans all periods of human history and includes examples of everything from the earliest Prehistoric flint and stone tools to Victorian potties. The collection has been growing since 1825 when archaeological objects began to be donated […]
This major and unique collection covers a wide range of material relating to the countries of the British Empire and the Commonwealth. The British Empire and Commonwealth Collection is in the care of Bristol Archives and Bristol Museums. Access the British Empire & Commonwealth Collection catalogue to search for objects and archives. This unique collection documents the […]
The Eastern Art collection numbers about 6,000 items, mostly from China and Japan. It holds a Designated status under the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council Designation Scheme, which identifies and celebrates pre-eminent collections of national and international importance held in England’s non-national museums, libraries and archives. A highlight of the collection is the Schiller bequest […]
The Fine Art collection comprises 1293 paintings,193 sculptures, around 20,000 works on paper including watercolours, drawings, artists’ sketchbooks, albums, photographs, prints and miniatures, and 15 videos. The collection spans Northern and Italian Renaissance painting, Baroque to modern French art, and British painting from the 17th century to the present day. It tells the story of […]
The Foreign Archaeology collection contains about 10,000 non-British archaeology objects, most of which are Egyptian. There are also Mediterranean, Greek, Roman, Assyrian, Mycenaean, and Near Eastern objects. The development of the collection was driven by two main factors: the desire of worldwide travellers to acquire antiquities, and the opportunity for museums and private collectors to […]
The Geology collection contains more than half a million rocks, fossils and minerals. Its quality, size and diversity make it one of the most significant regional collections in the UK. Specimens in this collection reveal the amazing and diverse geology of Bristol and the South West of England. Fossils give a glimpse of life in the […]
The aim of this collection is to have a complete series of maps of the city. So far, these range from Hoefnagle’s 1581 map of Brightstowe to Fuller’s 2014 map of Bristol. The maps show the development and expansion of the city over the centuries, documenting the history of the city as the population grew, as industries started […]
Bristol Museums has been collecting material to reflect Bristol’s industrial and maritime past since its earliest days, but it wasn’t until the 1960s that a dedicated curator was appointed. The collection now numbers over 10,000 objects and over 60,000 photographs. The majority of these are housed in the store adjacent to M Shed, which can […]
The Militaria collection covers several areas with an emphasis on local material. The Firearms collection covers guns made over a 200 year period from about 1750. The majority are locally-produced pistols, muskets and rifles. It also contains guns from the Boer War, sporting guns for hunting, and guns from Africa dating to the 18th century and the 1950s. […]
The Numismatics collection consists of coins, medals, commemorative medals, tokens, and bank notes. The emphasis is on the local, so there is a series of coins minted at the Bristol Mint, from the 11th century under Aethelred II to the 17th century under William III. There are also archaeological finds, from the Iron Age Dobunnic […]
The World Cultures collection at Bristol Museums includes material from the Americas, Africa and the Pacific. There are about 10,000 objects ranging from tiny pottery beads to full-size native American canoes, from huge bark-cloth masks from Papua New Guinea to a ball of string from the Congo. There are painted coats from Canada, a quilted […]
