The Great Fire of London, punk at 40 and a golden…

Epochal … Fire! Fire! exhibition at the Museum of London

Exhibition of the week

Fire! Fire!
An epochal event that marks the birth of modern Britain as Christopher Wren rebuilt the capital in its wake is explored in this family-friendly survey of the Great Fire of London. Find out how the Monument to the fire’s outbreak doubles up as a telescope, among other gems in the ashes of history.
• Museum of London, London, until April 2017.

Also showing

Painter’s Paintings
Last few weeks of this exhilerating encounter with great art and what it means to great artists, from the Cézanne owned by both Degas and Jasper Johns, to the Picassos that Picasso gave to Matisse.
• National Gallery, London, until 4 September.

Punk 1976-78
Punk is an academic subject now and, 40 years on, its archives are on display at the British Library. Ever get the feeling you’ve been catalogued?
• British Library, London, until 2 October.

Inspiring Impressionism
Step back from the rush of the Edinburgh festival and chill among the landscapes of Daubigny, Monet and Van Gogh.
• Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh, until 2 October.

Celts
If you want to enter a twilit Gaelic dream world, there’s no better way than to visit this extraordinarily seductive exhibition. Prehistoric Scotland – and Europe – is revealed as place of magic and beauty.
• National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, until 26 September.

Masterpiece of the week

A Young Woman Seated at a Virginal, by Jan Vermeer. — A Young Woman Seated at a Virginal, by Jan Vermeer (1670-1672). Photograph: VCG Wilson/Corbis via Getty Images

Rich surfaces – the painted case of a keyboard instrument, a blue shimmering skirt, a picture on the wall – interact in an almost abstract play of colour in this precociously modern meditation on desire, solitude and the silent music that is art.
• National Gallery, London.

Image of the week

Home (2010), by Edmund Clark. Photograph: Edmund Clark/Courtesy of Flowers Gallery London and New York

“This is a house in Kuwait,” says Edmund Clark of his image, part of an exhibition at the Imperial War Museum, London. “It belongs to the brother of an ex-Guantánamo Bay detainee. The architecture of the room struck me as incredibly confining.” Read more about the photographer’s Guantánamo series in this week’s My Best Shot.