Counting when, who and how: visualizing the British Museum’s history of acquisition through collection data, 1753–2019

This paper critically examines the possibilities of using the British Museum’s collection database as a research tool to examine acquisition history. It publishes initial findings from the author’s research into the history of the collection through a quantitative analysis of collection data. Rather than focusing on individual collectors, collections or areas of the collection, it takes a high-level comprehensive view of the current body of material, across time, departments and material. The paper asks three questions of the database: when did objects enter the museum’s collection, from whom and how? Through a numerical analysis, acquisition patterns are revealed which both challenge and augment our understanding of the history of the collection.