Derby Museum and Art Gallery

Derby Museum and Central Library : the older building designed by Richard Knill Freeman

The Derby Museum and Art Gallery , founded in 1882, is a museum in the central English city of Derby . It houses the world's largest collection of Joseph Wright of Derby paintings and an extensive collection of regional porcelain. There are also archaeological, historical and military-historical exhibits as well as a department for geology and natural history.

Collections

The world's most extensive collection of paintings by the painter Joseph Wright from the 18th century shows portrait and landscape painting as well as scenes from literature, industry and other subjects.

The porcelain collection contains exhibits from 1750, including those from the Royal Crown Derby manufactory and other regional manufacturers. According to the museum, the collection has international standing.

The archaeological collection mainly focuses on local finds from the Stone and Bronze Ages ( Hanson's dugout canoe ) to the Middle Ages, but also contains two well-preserved Egyptian mummies, the exact origin of which is unknown. They were probably acquired from a local collector in 1859 or 1860.

A military history section mainly deals with the history of local cavalry regiments such as the 9th / 12th Royal Lancers , the Derbyshire Yeomanry and the Sherwood Foresters.

Derby's role in the Jacobite uprising of 1745 is remembered in a reconstructed " Bonnie Prince Charlie Room". The original wooden panels from the local Exeter House , "one of the city's greatest treasures" according to the museum, date to the beginning of the 18th century.

The natural history collection of the museum shows fossils such as an ichthyosaurus , an approximately 120,000 year old hippopotamus skeleton found in Derby in 1895 and the stuffed carrier pigeon “King of Rome”, which flew back from Rome to Derby in 1913.