IN BLOOM at the Ashmolean Museum
An entrance like no other.
Tumbling and climbing roses sweep across the museum’s historic façade, framing the front of the building in movement, abundance and quiet drama.
Composed entirely of silk botanicals, the installation examines the relationship between nature and permanence — translating the fleeting beauty of flowers into an enduring, immersive form.
A study in abundance.
A commitment to sustainability.
A reimagining of what floristry can be.
Every stem thoughtfully repurposed after use.
Zero waste, maximum impact.
Created in collaboration with @ashmoleanmuseum
#ashmoleanmuseum #floralinstallation #eventflorist #inbloom #luxuryflorist
Thanks to my team @middlemen_logistics@pikaflowersuk@pollyandpetal@car_flowers_@flowerchild_and_co
📣 In Bloom: How Plants Change Our World is now open.
★ ★ ★ ★
The Guardian
"There's much to savour"
The Telegraph
🏛️ Ashmolean Members go for free with no need to book.
🌿 Visit the link in our bio to start planning your visit.
🎵 Eric Sutherland
The fleeting nature of life, in flowers 🌹
Rachel Ruysch created this meticulous still life in 1687.
Known for her intricate and detailed still lifes of flowers, Ruysch achieved international success and became the best documented female painter of the Dutch Golden Age.
Poppies with frayed petals were among the most unusual breeds developed by the Dutch in the 17th century. Their frail, delicate looks meant that they became a symbol of the fleeting nature of life in still life paintings like this one.
🏛️ See this beautiful work on display In Bloom: How Plants Changed Our World, open until 16 August.
🎨 A 'Forest Floor' Still Life of Flowers, Rachel Ruysch, 1687, oil on canvas. WA1940.2.64
See this incredible painting by Tintoretto as it was meant to be enjoyed.
The great Venetian Renaissance painter Tintoretto created this imposing work in the 1570s. Depicting the resurrection of Christ, it offers insight into the artist’s creative interpretation of biblical subjects and painterly style. Tintoretto was known for treating religious subjects in exciting and unusual ways.
The painting was altered from its original octagon shape to a rectangle, probably in the 17th century, distorting the intended composition.
Thanks to the generous support of @ampersandfoundation , the painting has been reframed and returned to its original octagonal shape.
Now, for the first time in centuries, you can encounter the artist’s original vision for this work.
📍Italian Renaissance gallery, Level 2
🖌️ The Resurrection of Christ, 1555 - 1573, Tintoretto (1519 - 1594). Oil on canvas, h x w 161 x 153 cm. WA1946.198
#TAFgrant
English portrait and landscape painter Thomas Gainsborough was born on this day in 1727.
Gainsborough was one of the leading portrait painters of the 18th century. In spite of this success, privately he would often express that he preferred painting landscapes, and some of his surviving letters express his frustration at his clients’ demands for portraits.
This portrait features his daughter, Margaret, as a peasant girl. It was originally part of a double portrait depicting both his daughters. The location of the other fragment featuring Mary, is unknown.
See this painting on display in Gallery 52 on Level 2.
🌾 Margaret Gainsborough gleaning, late 1750s, Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788). Oil on canvas, 73 x 63cm. WA1975.72
🍸Today is World Cocktail Day!🍸
What is your tipple of choice?
See this painting on display in Gallery 48, Level 2.
🍸 Still Life with Fruit, c.1929–1930, Daisy Linda Ward (1883–1937). Oil on canvas, 51 x 41 cm. WA1940.2.95
The Welsh artist, designer and printmaker Frank Brangwyn was born on this day in 1867.
Born in Bruges to an architect father who specialised in church furnishings, Brangwyn was profoundly moved by the destruction taking place throughout Belgium during the First World War.
Although never an official war artist, he produced more than 80 poster designs during the conflict. Most of these were donated to charity, but this lithograph formed part of the series ‘The Great War: Britain's Efforts and Ideals’, commissioned in 1917 by the Ministry of Information - the British propaganda department.
In the lithograph, four soldiers fight off a large octopus, at once a very real reminder of the perils of the sea, and a wider call to fight against an encroaching force.
🌊 The Freedom of the Seas, 1917, colour lithograph by Frank Brangwyn (1867–1956). WA1919.31.1
Lobster Tsuba 🦞
Today’s wonderful object is a Japanese tsuba.
The tsuba is a hand guard, placed between the hilt and blade of a Japanese sword. It is intended to protect the hand of the samurai warrior from slipping onto the blade, and also to balance the weight of the sword. Tsuba were used and forged as far back as the 5th century and initially their design was functional and plain.
By the 17th century and through the peaceful Edo Period, the tsuba became much more of an ornamental decorative object and a status symbol for the owner. Nowadays these sword guards are as coveted by collectors as the swords themselves.
🦞Tsuba with lobster, 1840. Shakudō with copper, 6.7 x 6.5 x 1.5 cm. EA1956.2084
This beautiful woodcut print is by master Japanese printmaker Utagawa Hiroshige I.
It comes from a series called View of Famous Places in the Sixty-odd Provinces and features Mount Kyōdai and the rice fields of Sarashina in the Shinano Province.
Hiroshige was a prolific artist; he is thought to have created between 4,000 and 5,000 print designs during a career that lasted almost 50 years.
Although Hiroshige produced a wide range of prints, including designs of beautiful women, kabuki actors, famous historical and mythological figures and bird-and-flower studies, he is most famous for his landscape prints which capture brilliantly the effects of season, weather and time of day.
⛰️ Mount Kyōdai and the Moon Reflected in the Rice Fields at Sarashina in Shinano Province, 1853, Utagawa Hiroshige I (1797–1858). Colour woodblock print, 36.1 X 23.7 cm. EAX.4342
This Roman coin is from Alexandria, it was struck under the reign of Roman emperor Domitian between 86–87 CE.
One side shows the portrait of the emperor. The reverse shows “Nilus” the personification of the river Nile holding a cornucopia in one hand and a reed in the other. He is leaning on a hippopotamus and around him are sixteen childlike figures. They represent sixteen cubits which is the optimal height of the seasonal flood necessary for a good harvest.
A statue of black basalt from Alexandria of the exact same scene has been dedicated by Domitian’s father, Vespasian in Rome. A copy of this statue is currently in the Vatican Museum.
🪙 Roman Provincial coin, 86–87 CE. Billon, 25mm diameter. HCR25760
Have you ever heard of the legend of the ‘vegetable lamb’?
This curious creature first appeared in European medieval texts and travelogues. Also known as ‘Scythian lamb’ or ‘Borometz’, it was believed to be an animal-plant hybrid, which was attached to the earth through a short stalk from which it bent and grazed the grass around it.
Its myth was likely inspired by a type of Asian fern (Cibotium barometz) with distinctive woolly stems which was widely used as a medicinal herb.
This engraving of a vegetable lamb was made by Elizabeth Blackwell in 1739. It featured in a bound volume of hand-coloured engravings titled A Curious Herbal.
🎟️ Discover more fascinating stories exploring our changing relationship with the natural world in In Bloom: How Plants Changed Our World.
🏛️ Ashmolean Members see the exhibition for free.
🐑 The Scythian Lamb, from Elizabeth Blackwell’s (1699–1758) A Curious Herbal, 1739. On loan from Hertford College Library.
