Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social · 6h

The exhibition is open at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, until 11 January 2026: www.ashmolean.org/exhibition/t...

Ashmolean Members go for free.

THIS IS WHAT YOU GET EXHIBITION

Showcasing the visual art of Stanley Donwood and Thom Yorke and the iconic images of Radiohead, this major retrospective opens in 2025.

www.ashmolean.org

5

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social · 6h

Have you booked your tickets to see This Is What You Get: Stanley Donwood, Radiohead, Thom Yorke?

You’ll find including original paintings for album covers, digital compositions, etchings, unpublished drawings, and lyrics in sketchbooks, from the artists’ 30-year collaboration.

1 2 11

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social · 23h

See the jar on display in Gallery 10 on the ground floor.

💚 Green-glazed jar, 701–800 CE, China. Earthenware with green glaze. 16cm (height) by 17.5cm (diameter). EA1956.3114

1 16

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social · 23h

This type of brightly glazed ceramic was made for only about fifty years, during the reign of emperor Minghuang – who ruled from 712 to 756 – when the Tang dynasty was at its height. At the time, the capital city Chang'an (modern Xian) was one of the most populous and cosmopolitan in the world.

2 3 28

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social · 23h

This extraordinarily vibrant green-glazed jar was made in China in the 8th century.

1 21 130

Reposted by Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Radiohead @radiohead.wastehq.social · 2d

Spilt wax, intricate drawings and etched copper plates; what started as an evening spent drawing by candlelight led to the album artwork for In Rainbows.

📸
1 © Thom Yorke & Stanley Donwood
2 © 2007 LLLP LLP under exclusive license to XL Recordings Ltd.

1 20 140

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social · 2d

Chandra Gupta II extended the Gupta Empire considerably to the West and is well-known by his title ‘Vikramaditya’ or ‘Sun of Valour’. On the reverse of this coin, the goddess Lakshmi is shown seated on a lion, making a gesture of scattering coins with her right hand.

🦁 Gupta coin. HCR6769

A round Indian gold coin depicting a Goddess seated on a lion

1 11

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social · 2d

The kings of the Gupta dynasty of Ancient India showed themselves on coins in various royal roles.

Here Chandra Gupta II is dramatically depicted slaying a lion, with a bow and arrow. Hunting was a royal privilege and its depiction implies bravery and power as well as the ideals of kingship.

A round Indian gold coin featuring a figure with a crossbow killing a lion.

1 6 28

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social · 3d

Crisp sunny mornings and crunchy golden leaves are here, so we’re celebrating with this wonderfully seasonal woodblock print by Utagawa Hiroshige.

🍁 Maple Trees at Mama, Tekona Shrine, and Linked Bridge, 1857, by Utagawa Hiroshige I (1797–1858). EAX.4362

1 33 83

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social · 4d

Compared to the earlier, more naturalistic depictions of octopuses in Minoan art, this octopus is rather stylized, notably in the number of arms. Despite the less realistic approach, the animal’s open eyes and curling limbs bring it to life.

🐙 Knossos storage jar. AN1911.608

A large ancient pot with a large octopus painted on in black with it's tentacles all curled around it.

1 4 40

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social · 4d

This jar stands at an impressive height of 75 cm. The painted decoration depicts an octopus, swimming in an abstract seascape. The jar comes from the Minoan palace at Knossos, on the island of Crete, and was created in the 15th century BCE.

A close up image of an ancient pot with a large octopus painted on in black with it's tentacles all curled around it.

1 29 150

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social · 5d

🐝 Tetradrachm coin with a bee, Turkey, silver, HCR5273
🪽 Dish with three cranes, waves and clouds, 1600–1800. Porcelain, 3 x 16.8 x 12.5 cm. EA1981.44
🐯 Tiger, 1889–1995, after Gao Qifeng (1889–1933). Ink and colour on paper, 164 x 88 cm. EA1995.249

A round ancient coin with a bee in the centre

A blue and white wavy edged plate with three cranes painted in the centre

A painting of a tiger walking in the snow and roaring

2 20

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social · 5d

🦋 Flowers and Insects, Jan van Kessel, the Elder (1626–1679). Oil on copper, 28.7 x 22 cm. WA1940.2.44
🦁 Gold-glass fragment with a lion, set in modern finger-ring, 201–400 CE. Gold, 1.8 cm diameter. AN2007.15

A painting of flowers, insects and butterflies

A glass ring with gold lion on a blue background

1 1 16

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social · 5d

It's always #WorldAnimalDay with our collection! Do you have a favourite in the Ashmolean?

Scroll ➡️ to see just a few of them.

🐸 Frog purse, 1601–1700. Silk, 8 x 6 2 cm. WA1947.191.324
🕷️ Ojime in the form of a spider on a chestnut, 1871–1900. Sentoku, 1.7 x 1.6 x 1 cm. EA1956.3754

A small object in the shape of a metal spider on top of a wooden chestnut

1 10 30

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social · 6d

This dream-like illustration is a detail from William Blake’s illustration to the 'Divine Comedy', Purgatorio XXVII, showing Dante and Statius sleeping with Virgil watching.

Detail from Dante and Statius sleeping, William Blake, 1827. WA1918.3

A watercolour of a staircase with three figures sleeping on three of the steps. In the sky is a large sun.

8 36

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social · 7d

Hear it from our visitors...

Explore the visual art of Stanley Donwood and Thom Yorke and the iconic images of Radiohead, This Is What You Get is open until January 2026.

🎟️ Book your tickets today: www.ashmolean.org/exhibition/t...

🏛️ Ashmolean Members go for free.

10

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social · 8d

Curved brushes are used to reach down the narrow neck of the bottle and the image is built up almost in reverse. Fine details are added first before the large image is created and colour added.

Both of these little snuff bottles were created by the same artist, Zhongshan Ye.

🖌️EAX.718

🖌️EAX.719

7 30

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social · 8d

🎨 The decoration painted onto these bottles is on the inside of the glass!

The process is known as verre églomisé, it is an application that not only requires special tools but an incredible level of skill.

A glass bottle painted from the inside with a rural Chinese scene with three women sitting under a tree

2 18 62

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social · 10d

It was found in a tomb that contained other gold ornaments, bronze and silver vessels, and a bronze mirror; this selection of objects indicates that the grave belonged to a woman.

See it on display in Gallery 16 on Level G.

🍂 Gold necklace, 500–401 BCE, Crimea. AN1885.482

A gold necklace with pendants in the shape of acorns hanging across the whole piece

4 22

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social · 10d

This striking gold necklace was made over 2,400 years ago. In ancient Greece, acorns were symbols of abundance and fertility, and used as decoration on gold objects.

The necklace was excavated over 150 years ago from the necropolis of Nymphaion in the Crimea, previously an ancient Greek colony.

2 28 120

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social · 11d

This new display within the European Ceramics Gallery is the outcome of a collaboration, bringing together a group of Oxford-based producers with artists, project consultants and a Museum team.

Shedding Light opens today, plan your visit: www.ashmolean.org/european-cer...

EUROPEAN CERAMICS GALLERY

The ceramics on display in this gallery cover 500 years of production ranging from the distinctive 17th century Staffordshire slipware by Thomas Toft and Worcester porcelain pieces to the Japanese…

www.ashmolean.org

13

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social · 11d

We are delighted to introduce you to Shedding Light, a new permanent display.

Through the creation of a 1950-60s Caribbean living room, Shedding Light reveals the intertwined histories of colonialism, enslavement, sugar production, and ceramics.

A photograph of an element of the Shedding Light display - a light bulb surrounded by fragments

A photograph of the Shedding Light display

A photograph of a detail of the Shedding Light display - a set of ceramics laid out on a table

1 9 30

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social · 11d

Sadly, for Domitianus, the extreme rarity of this coin – only the second known in existence – suggests that his bid for power is unlikely to have lasted more than a few days or weeks. The coin of this ‘lost emperor’ gives us a fascinating insight into the period between 200 and 300 CE

HCR6264.

An ancient Roman coin with nicks missing around the edge and a figure in the centre.

1 2 32

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social · 11d

Have you ever heard of the emperor Domitianus?

This remarkable coin discovered on farmland near Chalgrove in 2003 provides proof that a man named Domitianus claimed to be emperor in the early 270s CE. It was fused in a mass of nearly five thousand coins within a partially intact Roman jar.

5 32 140

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social · 15d

Flambé glazes such as this require high-firing temperatures and the exact results are not entirely controllable. They rely on many factors such as the thickness of the glaze application and the kiln’s atmosphere.

🍐 Pear-shaped bottle. EA1989.13

A pear-shaped Japanese bottle with a vibrant and highly reflective green glaze. There are also hints of yellow and blue

1 3 33