British Museum, other UK museums report missing artifacts, including Queen Victoria’s drawing
More than 1,700 artifacts are missing from museums and galleries in the United Kingdom
Over 1700 items, including Queen Victoria’s drawing, were reported missing by the various museums in England.
The U.K.’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has asked museums and galleries – that receive funding from the ministry – to provide details of artifacts that have gone missing from their collections in the last 20 years, revealing that over 1,700 artifacts are missing from their collections.
After the British Museum lost 2,000 artifacts last summer, the museum announced that there was a lack of cataloging at the museum.
The National Portrait Gallery, one of the museums and galleries found to have missing works after this year’s review, made a similar statement, stating that 45 artifacts were not missing or stolen, they were just “unlocated”.
An 1869 drawing of Queen Victoria, a mid-19th century engraving of King John issuing the Magna Carta, a bronze sculpture by the painter Thomas Stothard and a 1947 negative of the late Queen’s wedding to the Duke of Edinburgh recorded as “not found”.
Among the 180 artifacts missing from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, many important works, especially oil and watercolor paintings, were recorded missing.
The Victoria and Albert Museum announced it was not known whether the works were lost or stolen.
The Royal Museums at Greenwich announced that around 245 artifacts, including a navigational aircraft computer, have not been found and were recorded missing because of “data transfer from more primitive databases, incorrect documentation or ghost entries that are the result of past human error.”
The Natural History Museum reported a jaw fragment of a Late Triassic Diphydontosaurus was lost during a loan in 2019.
Meanwhile, the Imperial War Museum reported over 550 objects missing, including ship camouflage drawings, private papers of a British officer, a calendar with a photograph of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and a few currency notes.
The Science Museum Group reported the theft of two steam train models, a King George V and a British Railways Standard 4MT class in 2014, while Horniman Museum and Gardens recorded seven artifacts missing, including a protective amulet from 1933.
The Wallace Collection, Museum of the Home, Sir John Soane’s Museum and National Museums Liverpool reported only a few missing items, while Tate Art Museum the National Gallery reported no missing artifacts.
Source: Newsroom
