635. Can a Museum Be the Conscience of a Nation?

Okay, I'm gonna keep my voice down for a minute because we're in a museum in London. Obviously the British Museum is an inherently British institution. It's the first institution to actually be called British. That is Nicholas Cullenin. He became director of the British Museum in 2024.

Hans Sloane, our founder, of course, who offered an extraordinary collection of 80,000 objects to the nation, did it in a very deliberate way. He said he wanted it to be for the benefit of all persons, but he also stipulated that it was to be offered first to the City of London because it had the most international audience. And then he left a list in descending order of other cities it should be offered to if that didn't happen. based on how many people from different parts of the world would have access to his collection. So second was St.

Petersburg and then I think it was Paris, Berlin and Madrid. There's a lovely idea about museums being either windows or mirrors. For example, the National Portrait Gallery could be thought of as a mirror. It's a mirror of Britishness. You know, history of the nation through portraits.

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