The great British museum art quiz: inside the Ashmolean, Oxford

By the dreaming spires ... Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford. Photograph: Emily Jarrett

This quiz is brought to you in collaboration with Art UK, the online home for the UK’s public art collections, showing art from over 3,000 venues and by 45,000 artists.

Today, our questions are set by the Ashmolean Museum. The Ashmolean is the University of Oxford’s museum of art and archaeology. Its world-famous collections range from Egyptian mummies to contemporary art, telling human stories across cultures and time.

You can see art from the Ashmolean Museum on Art UK here.

1. 

   In which year was the Ashmolean Museum founded?

   1. 1683

   2. 1753

   3. 1815

   4. 2009

2. 

   Who painted this “forest floor” still-life?

   1. Clara Peeters

   2. Rachel Ruysch

   3. Anna Maria van Schurman

   4. Judith Leyster

3. 

   The Ashmolean is often described as a "collection of collections". Which of these famous brands has not contributed to its holdings and buildings?

   1. Fortnum and Mason

   2. Atlantic Records

   3. Morris Motors

   4. Basildon Bond

4. 

   One of the most famous musical instruments in the world, how is this violin built by Antonio Stradivari better known?

   1. The Redeemer

   2. The Prophet

   3. The Saviour

   4. The Messiah

5. 

   Can you identify the flower that this novice nun is holding in her right hand?

   1. Agapanthus

   2. Pansy

   3. Passion flower

   4. Waterlily

6. 

   Which artist painted this landscape?

   1. Emil Nolde

   2. Wassily Kandinsky

   3. Paul Gauguin

   4. Henri Matisse

7. Which place is being depicted in the painting in the previous question?

   1. Murnau

   2. Munich

   3. Moscow

   4. Neuilly-sur-Seine

8. 

   This Italian maiolica plate dated 1536, is skilfully painted with a head composed of interlaced penises. What sexually explicit term of derision, still popular today, is it referring to?

   1. Dickhead

   2. Idiot

   3. Bastard

   4. Rascal

Solutions

1:A - The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology was opened in Oxford in 1683. It is widely recognised as being the first modern museum. As part of the University of Oxford, it houses the university’s collections of art and antiquities, with objects dating from 500,000 BC to the present day. The Ashmolean is named after its founder Elias Ashmole (1617–92), a lawyer and antiquarian who gave his collections to the University of Oxford in 1677. A condition of his gift was that an institution dedicated to the advancement of knowledge should be built to house the collections. , 2:B - The Dutch painter Rachel Ruysch (1665–1750) was the daughter of the famous botanist and anatomist, Frederik Ruysch. She specialised in still-life and flower paintings and was one of the best known female artists in the 17th century, even becoming court painter to the Elector Palatine, Johann Wilhelm in Düsseldorf, who surrounded himself with Dutch artists. The Ashmolean Museum currently holds four paintings by Rachel Ruysch, which are all on display in the galleries. They were bequeathed to the Ashmolean by Daisy Linda Ward in 1939., 3:C - Charles Fortnum, inheritor of the Fortnum and Mason fortune and often described as the museum’s "second founder" gave the Ashmolean a huge gift of bronzes, ceramics, finger rings and other things in 1888.
 The Museum’s central West Meets East Gallery is named after Ahmet and Mica Ertegun, founders of Atlantic Records and among Oxford’s most significant benefactors in the 21st century.
 Basildon Bond stationery was part of the John Dickinson paper firm, which was the family business of John Evans, father of the Ashmolean’s former director, Arthur Evans, and the original collector of much of the Museum’s holdings of British archaeology. 
Oxford’s own motor mogul Lord Nuffield, William Morris gave the university a whole college – Nuffield – for postgraduate study in the social sciences, but appears not to have been too interested in the Ashmolean., 4:D - Created in 1716 by Antonio Stradivari (1644–1737), the violin belonged to Luigi Tarisio, a dealer and collector from Piedmont, who in the 19th century kept it in its case, but boasted of it to his friends in Paris. For this reason it was known as the ‘Messiah’, because it was eagerly expected but did not appear. It owes its great fame, however, not to the sounds that it makes but to the astonishing condition in which it survives. , 5:C - The passion flower or ‘passiflora’ represents the Passion of Christ and therefore the Crucifixion. The flowers in this painting, depicted in minute detail, epitomise the ideals of the Pre-Raphaelite painters, many of whom had connections with Oxford. The flowers were painted by the British artist Charles Allston Collins (1828–1873) in the garden of the Oxford University Press while staying in Oxford., 6:B - The Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) is much better known for his later, more abstract works. Here he uses a very bold colour palette in Fauvist style. The Ashmolean Museum holds a significant collection of works by other Russian artists, some of them bequeathed by Mikhail Vasilievich Braikevitch in 1949, in addition to views of St Petersburg from the Gwenoch David Talbot Collection., 7:A - In 1908, the same year as this painting, Kandinsky moved to Murnau am Staffelsee, a small town in Bavaria (Germany). There he painted landscapes inspired by the nearby Staffelsee and its surrounding mountains in bold colours., 8:A - On the long scroll are the words: "ogni homo me guarda come fosse una testa de cazi" ("every man looks at me as I were a head of dicks"); on the reverse is written "1536 El breve dentro voi legerite come I guide se intender el vorite" ("If you want to understand the meaning, you will be able to read the text like the Jews do") referring to the fact that the inscription on the scroll is written right to left, like Hebrew.

Scores

1. 8 and above.

   Magnificent – treat yourself to a victory lap around your living room.

2. 6 and above.

   Not a bad result – you clearly know your Kandinsky from your minor pre-Raphaelites.

3. 5 and above.

   Not a bad result – you clearly know your Kandinsky from your minor pre-Raphaelites.

4. 1 and above.

   Terrible, but at least you know where to head if we ever get out of lockdown.

5. 2 and above.

   Terrible, but at least you know where to head if we ever get out of lockdown.

6. 3 and above.

   Terrible, but at least you know where to head if we ever get out of lockdown.

7. 7 and above.

   Magnificent – treat yourself to a victory lap around your living room.

8. 4 and above.

   Not a bad result – you clearly know your Kandinsky from your minor pre-Raphaelites.

9. 0 and above.

   Terrible, but at least you know where to head if we ever get out of lockdown.