What's on at the British Museum in 2024/25?

We also have dates for your diary for our ever thought-provoking and wide-ranging free displays, including drawings by old masters (Raphael and Rembrandt), rugs from Afghanistan and works on paper by a major 20th-century German artist.

Plus, if you can't get to London, the Museum has touring exhibitions which you can see at our partner venues – find out what's on in the UK. You can also explore the diverse collection from home with the British Museum Audio App.  

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Hiroshige: artist of the open road

1 May – 7 September 2025
Room 35: The Joseph Hotung Great Court Gallery

Join Hiroshige on a lyrical journey through Edo Japan, exploring the natural beauty of the landscapes and the bustle of urban life. The exhibition also considers his lasting influence on modern and contemporary artists.  

Born into a humble home during an unsettled time in Japan's history, Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) went on to become one of Japan's most talented, prolific and popular artists.  

His calm artistic vision of Japan connected with – and sustained – people at every level of society through uncertain times. From fashionable figures and energetic city views to glimpses of the natural world, Hiroshige captured many aspects of Japanese life. Stunning flower-and-bird prints show Hiroshige's poetic feeling for nature while his evocative landscapes reflected the growing interest in travel across Japan and showed his world not merely as it was, but the way it might be.  

Possessed of remarkable technical skills – both as a colourist and draftsman – Hiroshige's work also shows a sympathetic regard for people from all walks of life, and sensitivity to the rhythms of nature.

The exhibition will explore Hiroshige's art and legacy through a significant gift and loan of prints from a major US collector of Hiroshige's work, as well as prints, drawings, illustrated books and paintings from the British Museum collection, and additional important loans.  

The exhibition is the first of Hiroshige to be held at the British Museum and the first on the artist in London for more than a quarter of a century.

Find out more about Hiroshige: artist of the open road.

Ancient India: living traditions

22 May – 19 October 2025
Room 30: The Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery

Where does the image of the beloved and playful god Ganesha, with his elephant head and rounded belly, originate? What inspired the depictions of Hindu, Buddhist and Jain deities and enlightened teachers in the forms we are still familiar with today? How did these religions and their devotional art spread across the Indian Ocean to Southeast Asia and along the Silk Roads to East Asia? This major new exhibition explores the origins and spread of the sacred art of three of the world's major religions from the nature spirits of ancient India.  

Through the lens of the exceptional South Asian collection at the British Museum, as well as generous loans from national and international partners, this will be one of the first major exhibitions in the world to look at the early sacred art of India from a multi-faith, contemporary and global perspective.

The exhibition will be a colourful, multi-sensory and atmospheric journey in which to encounter devotional art in a contemporary context. Connected through the common threads of nature spirits, community, continuity and change, it will show how these living religious traditions and their sacred art are now part of the daily lives of almost two billion people around the world. The arrival of South Asian diaspora communities in the UK means that these religions and devotional art are also part of British culture. The exhibition will also explore provenance, examining the stories, from creation to acquisition by museums, of key objects in the show.  

The exhibition will showcase more than 180 objects – including sculptures, paintings, drawings and manuscripts – to explore how these indigenous religions transformed India's sacred landscape and shaped devotional works of art into the forms we recognise today.

Find out more about Ancient India: Living traditions.

Silk Roads

26 September 2024 – 23 February 2025
Room 30: The Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery

Supported by The Huo Family Foundation
Additional supporters: James Bartos, The Ruddock Foundation for the Arts, Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation

Camel caravans crossing desert dunes, merchants trading silks and spices at bazaars – these are images that come to mind when we think of the Silk Roads. But the reality goes far beyond this.

A ground-breaking exhibition at the British Museum, Silk Roads challenges and expands the modern popular concept of the 'Silk Road' as a simple history of trade between 'East' and 'West'. Rather than a single trade route, the Silk Roads were made up of overlapping networks linking communities across Asia, Africa and Europe, from East Asia to Britain, Scandinavia to Madagascar.

This major show is the first to look at how the epic journeys of people, objects and ideas along the Silk Roads shaped cultures and histories. The Silk Roads were in use for millennia, and the exhibition focuses on a defining period in their history, from about AD 500–1000. These centuries saw significant leaps in connectivity and the rise of major religions that linked communities across continents.

Structured into five geographical zones, the exhibition showcases more than 300 objects – including loans from national and international institutions. From Tang Chinese ceramics destined for ports in the Middle East to Indian garnets found in Suffolk, they reveal the astonishing reach of these networks.

Many of the items are on display in the UK for the very first time, including the oldest group of chess pieces ever found and a monumental six-metre-long wall painting from the 'Hall of the Ambassadors' in Afrasiab (Samarkand), Uzbekistan. The painting evokes the cosmopolitanism of the Sogdians, from Central Asia, who were great traders during this period.

Find out more about Silk Roads.
 

Hew Locke: what have we here?

17 October 2024 – 9 February 2025
Room 35: The Joseph Hotung Great Court Gallery

Supported by Cockayne – Grants for the Arts: a donor advised fund held at The London Community Foundation

This major exhibition sees renowned Guyanese-British artist Hew Locke turn his lens on the British Museum collection in a collaborative exhibition exploring histories of British imperial power. Following a two-year curatorial collaboration with the British Museum, Hew Locke: what have we here? is Locke's personal and emotive exploration of the collection, highlighting both treasures and lesser-known objects from Africa, India and the Caribbean. It examines imperial power while considering today's often contentious and deeply felt debates around cultural heritage.

Like many museums across the world, the British Museum's history and collection have ties to empire. This bold exhibition aims to bring nuance to often-polarised debates, encouraging visitors to leave with more questions than answers.

Newly commissioned sculptural works by Locke form a central part of the exhibition. The Watchers (2024) – carnivalesque figures embedded into the build of the exhibition – observe visitors from vantage points throughout the space, acting in the manner of a Greek chorus. The Watchers also spill out of the exhibition into the Museum's Enlightenment gallery.

Locke and his partner and studio curator Indra Khanna have been visiting the British Museum regularly over the past two years, viewing objects in the stores and study rooms and working closely with more than 20 specialist curators. This is Locke's first artist-curated museum exhibition, and an opportunity for him to engage more deeply with a museum collection than ever before. The exhibition features more than 150 objects. The majority are from the Museum collection and appear alongside Locke's own work and personal items, as well as loans from other institutions including the Royal Collection Trust, the British Library, the National Trust and Imperial War Museums.

Find out more about Hew Locke: what have we here?
 

Picasso: printmaker

7 November 2024 – 30 March 2025
Room 90: Prints and drawings

Supported by Frederick Mulder Ltd, ARTscapades, The Michael Marks Charitable Trust, Hamish Parker, P F Charitable Trust and The IFPDA Foundation. We are also grateful to Hamish Parker for funding a modern print curatorial post and his extensive support towards Picasso print acquisitions.

This exhibition showcases around 100 prints by Pablo Picasso (1881‒1973), including some never-displayed pieces from his acclaimed 347 Suite. Though most famous for his paintings, Picasso was a pioneering force in printmaking and made prints throughout his career, often in periods of intense activity, producing around 2,400 in total. The British Museum collection of his prints has grown in recent years and is now the largest collection in the UK at over 500.

The autobiographical nature of Picasso's work means his prints offer unique insights into his life and loves, as well as his creativity and extraordinary artistic vision. The exhibition charts the artist's long-standing, if at times episodic, engagement with printmaking from his formative period in Paris at the turn of the 20th century until his final years in the South of France in the early 1970s. It also explores Picasso's relationships with his wives and lovers, and his sometimes tender but, at times, troubling depictions of sex.

With no formal training in printmaking, Picasso produced his first professional print – The frugal meal – in 1904. Prints from the celebrated Vollard Suite will also be featured. This set of 100 etchings, executed between 1930 and 1937, illustrates the development of Picasso's skills in the medium as well as his interest in Greek and Roman art and mythology.

In 1968, aged 86, Picasso produced 347 etchings, drypoints and aquatints while contemplating his life, achievements and legacy. The exhibition brings together the largest number of prints ever displayed at the British Museum from the set of the 347 Suite, acquired in its entirety by the British Museum in 2014.

Find out more about Picasso: printmaker.
 

War rugs: Afghanistan's knotted history

4 October 2024 – 29 June 2025
Room 43a: The Islamic world, The Albukhary Foundation Gallery of the Islamic world

In December 1979 Soviet troops crossed into Afghanistan, beginning a protracted 10-year war. As the country was transformed by conflict, Afghan weavers started to include imagery of modern warfare in their carpets and rugs. Birds were replaced by military helicopters. Guns took the place of flowers. Demons fought alongside tanks. This fusion of traditional crafts with the recording of contemporary history created a new artform: Afghan war rugs.

Through a selection of war rugs and other objects from the British Museum collection, this display explores Afghanistan's recent turbulent history and delves into the effects conflict has had on weavers in terms of displacement, the dislocation of traditional production, and market demand.  

Initially bought by military personnel, journalists, diplomatic and humanitarian staff working in the region, war rugs are now collected and exhibited worldwide. They continue to be produced to this day to reflect Afghanistan's changing political landscape.

Find out more about War rugs: Afghanistan's knotted history.

Gifts of love and friendship: Max Beckmann and Marie-Louise von Motesiczky

8 October 2024 – 28 January 2025
Room 90a: Prints and drawings

In 2021 the British Museum acquired a significant group of prints and drawings by Max Beckmann (1884–1950), one of the major German artists of the first half of the 20th century. He gave all of these works (apart from one woodcut) to Marie-Louise von Motesiczky (1906–96), a former pupil of his, who kept them in her possession until her death.  

Beckmann first got to know Marie-Louise through her cultured and wealthy family in Vienna in 1920 and it was on a visit to them that he was introduced to her friend Mathilde von Kaulbach (1904‒86) (known as 'Quappi'), who was to become his second wife.

The group of five drawings and three prints covers the artist's career from the 1920s to 1947, when he and Quappi left Europe permanently for the US. They will be displayed with other examples of Beckmann's graphic art from the Museum collection.

The purchase of this extraordinary group of works on paper was supported by the Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Charitable Trust and the David and Liza Brown Bequest Fund through the Art Fund and the Oppenheimer Fund. In addition to this generous financial assistance, the Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Charitable Trust has given an additional drypoint print to ensure that the group remained together.

Find out more about Gifts of love and friendship: Max Beckmann and Marie-Louise von Motesiczky.
 

City life and salon culture in Kyoto and Osaka, 1770–1900

11 October 2024 – 30 March 2025
Rooms 92–94: Japan, The Mitsubishi Corporation Galleries

From the late 18th century into the beginning of modern times, artistic creation and scholarship blossomed in two important and neighbouring Japanese cities: Kyoto and Osaka. New styles and approaches to painting emerged, intricate woodblock print technologies developed, and the number of publications dramatically increased. These dynamic trends were stimulated not just through Japanese ingenuity, but also due to contact with people and goods from the wider world through the port of Nagasaki.

The paintings, prints, books and craftworks in this display reflect the artistic trends at the time and showcase people's enjoyment of culture. Many people grouped together to take part in hobbies, from poetry, painting and music to horticulture and tea ceremony. Within these cultural spaces, official class distinctions were set aside and individuals communicated and interacted on equal terms – an ethos which spurred creativity across Japanese society.

All of the objects on display are from the Japanese collection at the Museum, with many shown for the first time. Others are on display for the first time in decades.
 

Colour and line: Watteau drawings

15 May – 14 September 2025
Room 90: Prints and drawings

This display features the Museum's outstanding collection of more than 50 drawings by the French 17th-century painter, Antoine Watteau (1684–1721). Such a wealth of works by the artist (only the Louvre has more) is unexpected as, in general, the Museum's collection of French 18th-century drawings is limited. The light-hearted and playful nature of much art of the period, shaped by its largely aristocratic patronage, found a cooler reception in Britain.

Watteau may have escaped this censure owing to his birthplace in the Flemish city of Valenciennes, taken over by the French in 1678. Flemish artists such as Rubens and Van Dyck had long been highly regarded in England, and Watteau's early drawings in particular have a marked Flemish influence. Watteau was inspired by Rubens's use of red, black and white chalks to create his own characteristic 'trois crayons' style, which allowed for a sumptuous suggestion of texture and pattern.

Watteau died in his mid-30s, probably of tuberculosis, but despite the brevity of his career, he developed rapidly as an artist – moving away from his early military scenes, and developing the dreamlike, romantic, allegorical world of the fête galante. This progression was tracked by his drawings as he studiously prepared every detail of his canvases on paper.

In this, the first exhibition of the Museum's Watteau holdings since 1980, visitors can also enjoy prints and drawings by Watteau's pupils and admirers (such as Jean-Baptiste Pater and Nicolas Lancret) that provide a wider context of his significance to French art.

Find out more about Colour and line: Watteau drawings.

Raphael to Cozens: drawings from the Richard Payne Knight bequest

15 May – 14 September 2025
Room 90: Prints and drawings

Richard Payne Knight (1751–1824) bequeathed to the Museum his collection of over 1,000 drawings (including more than 250 by Claude Lorrain and the first Watteau to enter the collection), along with his classical bronzes, gems, cameos and coins. The bequest was the first to establish the Museum as a recipient of first-rate old master drawings, as well as reinforcing its new-found status as actively collecting contemporary British drawings following Francis Towne's bequest of 1816.

Wealthy from birth thanks to his family's ironworks in Herefordshire, Payne Knight had the means to acquire the best drawings available on London's dynamic late eighteenth-century art market. His collection included examples by famous masters like Raphael, Michelangelo and Rembrandt, as well as leading contemporary British artists like John Robert Cozens, Thomas Gainsborough, and John Hamilton Mortimer.

The display will explore these twin aspects of Payne Knight's collecting, with half of the space dedicated to his old master drawings, and half to his drawings by late 18th-century British artists. The selected works reflect the breadth of Payne Knight's intellectual interests: from art history, archaeology, and classical mythology to medieval British history and contemporary aesthetic theory. In many cases, the works directly informed his own research on these topics. Contemporary landscape drawings articulated visually his theories of the picturesque, while drawings that recorded the archaeological sites of Sicily helped him refine his arguments about ancient cultural practices.

This is the first time the Museum will display such a large selection from this important bequest since its arrival in 1824.

Find out more about Raphael to Cozens: drawings from the Richard Payne Knight bequest.

Admonitions of the instructress to the court ladies

14 July – 25 August 2025 
Room 91a

This masterpiece is considered a milestone in Chinese painting history. Traditionally attributed to Gu Kaizhi (about AD 345–406), it probably dates to between AD 400 and 700. To ensure its preservation it is only displayed for six weeks each year.

The Admonitions Scroll depicts a poetic text composed by an official Zhang Hua (about AD 232–300) aimed at correcting the behaviour of an empress. The British Museum purchased the Scroll from Captain Clarence Johnson (1870–1937) who was in Beijing in 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion (1899–1901). Originally a handscroll, the painting and later inscriptions were separated and mounted onto panels in 1914.

Find out more about the Admonitions of the instructress to the court ladies.

The British Museum across the UK:
National Touring and Partnership Exhibitions

The British Museum works with partner museums and galleries in every part of the UK. The Museum is committed to sharing the collection and our knowledge as widely as possible to create a positive educational, social and economic impact across the UK. Through our programme of touring exhibitions and loans, between April 2023 and March 2024, the British Museum lent more than 1,900 objects to 130 venues around the UK, reaching eight million visitors outside of London.

A British Museum Touring Exhibition

The botanical world of Mary Delany

Beningbrough Hall, National Trust, Yorkshire: 10 September 2024 – 23 March 2025 
No. 1 Royal Crescent, Bath: 15 March – 15 June 2025 

Discover the intricate botanical creations of 18th century artist Mary Delany, with a display of high-resolution photographs that highlight the stunning details of her pioneering 'paper mosaiks'. Starting at the age of 72, Delany created more than 900 of these extraordinary artworks using painstakingly precise techniques. Until now, they have remained largely unseen due to their fragile nature and existence within bound volumes. Within these displays, visitors will be able to look closely at the incredible precision of these spectacular works, find out more about the inspiration and drive behind the artist's impressive output, as well as exploring the response of contemporary art commissioned in each venue.

Find out more about The botanical world of Mary Delany.
 

A British Museum Partnership Exhibition

Gladiators of Britain

Dorset Museum & Art Gallery, Dorchester: 25 January – 11 May 2025
Northampton Museum and Art Gallery: 24 May – 7 September 2025
Grosvenor Museum, Chester: 20 September – 25 January 2026
Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery, Carlisle: 7 February – 19 April 2026

The events of the amphitheatre, with its wild beasts and enslaved fighters, are one of the most fascinating aspects of Roman culture. Bringing together some of Britain's most important objects from the period, this touring exhibition will tell the story of those who died to the roar of the crowd.

A partnership with Colchester and Ipswich Museums, the exhibition will explore Roman spectacle in the local region of each venue. Highlights include the Colchester Vase loaned by Colchester Museums, which records a fight between two real gladiators, and the Hawkedon Helmet, the only confirmed piece of gladiatorial armour found in Roman Britain.

Supported by the Dorset Foundation in memory of Harry M Weinrebe.

Find out more about Gladiators of Britain.
 

A British Museum Spotlight Loan

Ancient Sudan: enduring heritage

Portsmouth Museum and Art Gallery: 1 February – 11 May 2025
The Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum: 25 October 2025 – 22 February 2026

Explore the Kushite Kingdom, one of the largest empires in the ancient world, which flourished in Sudan nearly 3,000 years ago. This touring exhibition will examine this ancient culture's skilled craftsmanship, distinct religious beliefs, and the important role of women, as well as exploring the rich culture of modern Sudan. Highlights include beautiful examples of ceramics, a carved stone offering table and a striking bronze depiction of a Kushite goddess.  

This cultural legacy now faces significant threats due to an ongoing civil war, which has displaced millions of people. While highlighting the efforts of Sudanese people to protect their heritage, the exhibition will introduce audiences to a deep, rich culture that is not defined by its present-day conflict. 

Supported by the Dorset Foundation in memory of Harry M Weinrebe.

Find out more about Ancient Sudan: enduring heritage.
 

A British Museum Partnership Exhibition 
with Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture and Bradford District Museums & Galleries

Ice Age Art Now

Cliffe Castle Museum, Keighley: 21 June – 14 September 2025

This visually stunning exhibition shows how artistic creativity existed thousands of years before traditional art histories suggest – as an essential part of human life. Ice Age Art Now presents work by people living in Europe at the end of the last Ice Age, some as much as 24,000 years old. These astounding works reveal the deep roots of all the characteristics of art, such as drawing, sculpture, realism, abstraction, signs, symbols – and the extraordinary skill and imagination of these early image makers find echoes in modern and contemporary art.

This family-friendly exhibition features a wealth of rare items from the British Museum and local treasures from the collections of Bradford District Museums & Galleries, arranged into such themes as decorating the body, drawing animals and abstracting the female form. The exhibition also features an installation reimagining cave art and other imagery from thousands of years ago for the 21st century.

Supported by the Dorset Foundation in memory of Harry M Weinrebe.

Find out more about Ice Age Art Now.
 

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