In late November, the Natural History Museum opens a new permanent gallery, Treasures, showcasing 22 of the most valuable and significant items in its collections. This cabinet of curiosities includes unique, famous and surprising specimens such as the first Iguanodon teeth discovered by Mary Ann Mantell, which inspired the theory that giant reptiles once walked the Earth.

These 22 treasures have been selected from the Museum’s collection of more than 70 million specimens, books and artworks, primarily for their scientific value but also their historical, aesthetic and cultural worth. They tell inspiring stories about our endeavours to explore and understand the natural world and in doing so reveal the full story of the Natural History Museum.

Treasures include 200 million-year-old ammonites once owned by the father of geology, William Smith, the first edition of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection – the book that changed the way we look at the world – and Archaeopteryx, the earliest known bird and the first one ever found. It is the most valuable fossil in the Museum’s collection and is 147 million-years-old.

In partnership with the Natural History Museum we would like to invite you to a special preview of the Treasures gallery, before it opens to the public, on the evening of Wednesday 28 November from 19.00 – 21.00. We will also have our exciting new forthcoming limited edition on display, Birds Drawn for John Gould by Edward Lear.
125 places are available on a first-come, first-served basis and can be secured by
clicking here to register.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Kind regards,

Julia, The Folio