First Time Out exhibition – in pictures

A cigar holder representing the coronation of King Ludwig II of Bavaria. Ornately carved from meerschaum, a versatile clay-like material typically used in traditional pipe making, this extravagant piece was made in 1864 to celebrate Ludwig's coronation
Photograph: Science Museum/Wellcome Images

A dolphin skull with scrimshaw decoration. The Natural History Museum inherited this skull in 1936 from the private collection of Baron Rothschild. It has never been on display because it came with no information and did not fit with other specimens in the galleries
Photograph: Jonathan Jackson/The Natural History Museum, London

A working model of a guillotine made from cow bone, crafted by POWs at Norman Cross prison camp near Peterborough during the Napoleonic wars in the early 19th century
Photograph: John Moore (c) Vivacity Culture and Leisure

A mask created by the Kwakwaka’wakw people who live on the Pacific north-west coast of Canada
Photograph: (c) Horniman Museum and Gardens

An early Joseph Swan carbon filament lamp, with Swan patent lampholder, 1881, and quick-break switch made under John H Holmes’s patent no. 3256, late 1880s
Photograph: (c) Discovery Museum, Newcastle

Torso – Woman, Bath Stone, by Eric Gill, 1931. Made soon after Gill began direct carving of stone figures and around the time of converting to Catholicism, the sculpture highlights Gill’s mastery of linear expression and is evidence of his interest in medieval religious art, Egyptian, Greek and Indian sculpture
Photograph: (c) The Estate of Eric Gill

A set of 10 ivory mathematical puzzles in a black lacquer box, made in China, 1800s. As trade opened up between China and Europe in the early 1800s, items such as these were brought back as gifts and souvenirs from the far east
Photograph: (c) Science Museum

The Fool’s Bauble, a prop for an RSC production of King Lear in 2007. Designed by Christopher Oram, the prop was made to look like Sylvester McCoy who played the Fool in the production
Photograph: Gina Print (c) RSC

Extracts from Charles Darwin's letters addressed to Professor Henslow, privately printed, Cambridge, 1835, with corresponding original letter
Photograph: (c)The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

A detail of the model bone guillotine
Photograph: John Moore (c) Vivacity Culture and Leisure

The rough-toothed dolphin skull. The drawings are a craft known as scrimshaw, specific to crews of long-haul whaling ships. Sailors spent the long days at sea decorating bones and teeth from their catches. They used needles from their sewing kits to scour the designs, then coloured them in with ink or dye
Photograph: The Natural History Museum, London

The Ludwig cigar holder
Photograph: (c) Science Museum/Wellcome Images

An oval dish from the New Dulong pattern service, late 18th century, Hard-paste porcelain, Meissen manufactory, Germany. Founded in 1710, the Meissen factory, outside Dresden, was the first in Europe to discover the secret of hard-paste porcelain
Photograph: Mike Fear © The National Trust, Waddesdon