Oxford

We spent one night in Oxford staying at Keble College. 

 

 

The dining room where we had breakfast was very grand (above).

In the morning we were free to see what ever we wanted. Most of the group went to the Pitt Rivers Museum and the Ashmolean. I went to the Museum of Natural History which comprised of a lot of cool taxidermy animals (some of which you could stroke). 

 

The Pitt Rivers Museum, which displays archaeological and anthropological collections, was at the back of this exhibit. I only looked at briefly - it contained a large number of tribal artefacts such as shields, spears, masks and textiles.

I heard that there was an exhibition on Raphael's drawings at the Ashmolean so I decided to check it out.

 

 

I looked around the Museum first, mainly at the Ancient Greek sculptures, before going to the Raphael exhibition. The exhibition featured finely drawn sketches which were mostly studies for paintings - studies of the Virgin and Child, and for his painting of The Disputa. Also I didn't realise that when he lived in Florence he was influenced by the styles of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, so there were drawings of his which he modelled after Michelangelo and Leonardo's works. For example, there were drawings Raphael had done based on Michelangelo's David.

We only had the morning in Oxford then headed on the bus to Stowe House, Buckingham, after lunch.