The Fitzwilliam Museum - University of Cambridge

The Fitzwilliam Museum
Published by The Fitzwilliam Museum,
Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RB
Tel: 01223 332900
Fax: 01223 332923
Email: fitzmuseum-enquiries@lists.cam.ac.uk
www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk
The Fitzwilliam Museum is the principal museum of the
University of Cambridge. It was founded in 1816 by the bequest
of Richard, Viscount Fitzwilliam, an eighteenth-century collector
whose gift included funding for the building on Trumpington
Street which opened to the public in 1848. Since then the
Museum and its collections have continued to grow thanks to
generations of benefactors. Today it houses under a single roof
works of art surviving from many of the great civilisations of the
past, from ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, through the
occidental and oriental cultures of the most recent millennia to
European and North American art of the last century. Described
by the Standing Commission on Museums and Galleries as ‘one
of the greatest art collections of the nation and a monument of
the first importance’, the Fitzwilliam was designated in 1997 as a
museum with outstanding collections.
Text and photographs © The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, 2005 unless specified otherwise
ISBN 0 904454 69 X
Production editors: Fiona Brown and Lesley Nolan
Design: cantellday www.cantellday.co.uk
Printed by The Cloister Press, Cambridge
Front cover: Old meets new: The Courtyard at The Fitzwilliam Museum (detail)
This page: The Fitzwilliam Museum, Founder’s Building