daviesac Arab-Byzantine Coins In AD 622 the Prophet Muhammad led a community from the city of Mecca in the Arabian Peninsula to the city of Medina. This date has come to form the beginning of the Muslim calendar as it represents the first founding of a community based on belief in Muhammad’s teachings and the revelation … Read more
Eastern Medieval Coins The Barber collection has significant strengths in eastern medieval coinage, including some unique examples of early Arab-Byzantine issues, a large selection of Sasanian coinage, extensive holdings of Turkmen coins and a range of Georgian and Armenian coinage. Elements of this collection were the focus of the 2013-14 numismatic exhibition Faith and Fortune: … Read more
Late Byzantine Coins In 1092, the Emperor Alexios I Komnenos (1081-1118) reformed the Byzantine gold coinage to reverse the debasement which had been progressing through the eleventh century. This can be considered as the beginning of Late Byzantine coinage. The concave shape of the coins continued to mark the Late Byzantine coinage, as it had … Read more
Middle Byzantine Coins Around the year 830, the Emperor Theophilos (829-842) reformed the Byzantine coinage again, removing the now redundant denominational marks, which, while relevant in the sixth and early seventh centuries, had been reduced simply to the follis by the early ninth century. It was replaced with the epigraphic message: +θЄOFILЄ AVʕOVSτЄ SV nICAS (Theophilos … Read more
Early Byzantine Coins Following the monetary reforms of Anastasius I (491-517) in 498, the Byzantine monetary system reached the height of its complexity in the sixth century. Several mints in cities across the Empire struck coins of gold, silver and base metal (copper alloys). The base metal coins in particular showed a great variety in design … Read more
Byzantine Coins The single largest section of the Barber Institute’s coin collection comprises its Byzantine coins. The most important collection of Byzantine coins in Europe, the Barber Institute houses examples of all periods of Byzantine monetary history and a number of rare specimens. Around 8,000 of the Barber’s 16,000 coins are Byzantine. The Byzantine Empire … Read more
Roman Republic Coins Rome began producing what may be considered proto-coins before the fourth century BC. These aes rude, as they are known, were essentially lumps of bronze or copper and are often found in hoards near sacred springs and fountains. The aes rude appear to have had no regulation of weight and are assumed … Read more
Aeneas | Coin from the Collection Aeneas was one of the legendary founders of Rome (as well as Romulus and Remus in a different legend), whose story is most famously immortalised in Virgil’s Aeneid. As well as a founder of Rome, Aeneas was believed a son of Venus-Aphrodite, a survivor of the Trojan war, the … Read more
Roman Coins The Barber Institute has a significant collection of Roman coins, including both republican and imperial issues, as well as a substantial number of Roman Egyptian tetradrachms. The Barber’s Roman coins total just over 5,000, out of the 16,000-strong collection. Roman coins are considered to continue until the reforms of Anastasius I (491-517) in 498, … Read more
Byzantine Seals In the Byzantine Empire seals were used, especially from the seventh century, though they had also been used in the Roman world, to verify that documents came from their official sender and to prove that they had not been opened or tampered with. They were an early form of document security and an … Read more
Hellenistic Coins The Barber Institute collection of Hellenistic coins is small but contains some fine specimens of early Greek coins, the earliest examples of ancient western coinage. It also contains some of the most beautiful and finely struck examples of Greek royal coinage. The reign of Alexander the Great provides a valuable case study of … Read more
A feminist re-interpretation of fairytale Little Red Riding Hood, the urban landscape, and the relationships between people and their environment and between art and medical science are among the many diverse subjects and themes explored by emerging artists in this year’s New Art West Midlands. Created in as wide a range of media – including … Read more
British Portrait Miniatures of Children and Families The family – and how its members are depicted on portrait miniatures – is the theme of this display of outstanding small British (and one French) masterpieces from two important English private collections. Complementing the exhibition Ruby’s Room, it includes delightful and intimate little portraits of children, brothers, … Read more
Photographic Miniatures by Bettina von Zwehl An intriguing eye miniature in the collection of the Victoria Art Gallery, Bath, was the starting point for this series of recent work by renowned contemporary photographer Bettina von Zwehl (b. 1971). While producing a series of works inspired by historic painted portrait miniatures in the V&A and Bath’s … Read more
The Barber Institute contains one of the finest small collections of European art in the UK. The works have been purchased to fit Lady Barber’s criteria that everything should be of ‘that standard of quality required by the National Gallery or Wallace Collection’. Careful consideration has also been given to making sure that the works … Read more
Visualising the divine on Byzantine and Early Islamic Coinage Epochal moments in the early histories of two of the world’s great religions – as illustrated by the currencies their followers created and circulated – are explored in this absorbing exhibition. Coins have always provided a stage on which the dramas of religion and politics, statehood … Read more
French Prints of the Late 19th Century The 19th century was a period of immense social and artistic foment in France and throughout Europe, and this display, themed to coincide with the exciting loan to the gallery of Manet’s masterpiece Portrait of Madamoiselle Claus, explores the contrasts and conflicts of the period. Using a selection … Read more
Early Acquisitions of Prints for the Barber Collection The Barber Institute’s collection of works on paper is famed for its exemplary quality, due in no small part to the acquisitions of its first Director, Professor Thomas Bodkin. This display focuses on the prints purchased for the collection in 1939, the year the Barber Institute opened, … Read more
The Process of Painting One of the most important painters working in Britain today, London-based John Monks is as much influenced by historical art and the interiors of galleries and historic buildings as he is by the work of contemporary artists. This set of captivating paintings – large canvases that include a triptych specially created … Read more
New Electroacoustic Music inspired by Art Three of the Barber Institute’s best-loved paintings – as you’ve never heard them before! In this exciting sound installation, a collaboration with the University’s Department of Music, three postgraduate composers were commissioned to create new short electroacoustic pieces, inspired by works in the Barber collection. They chose three very different pictures … Read more
Portraiture Highly original and arresting angles on the theme of portraiture feature in this display of work by emerging photographic talent from Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, Birmingham City University. In the fourth of an annual selective award collaboration, students were challenged to produce their own responses to the theme that has been central … Read more
Early Acquisitions of Drawings for the Barber Collection The first works acquired for the Barber in July 1936 were drawings, their subtlety appealing to the Barber’s First Director, Thomas Bodkin, who wrote: ‘Drawings evoke rather than compel emotion; they whisper rather than call to the spectator’. Those early purchases comprised important examples by Fra Bartolommeo, … Read more
20th-Century Portrait Drawings From formal commissions to intimate sketches of friends and lovers, Defining Faces focuses on portraiture in a century that witnessed radical changes in artistic style. The exhibition – the second in a prestigious collaboration with the National Portrait Gallery, London – examines the function of, and the variety of approaches to the … Read more
The great English architect and designer AWN Pugin passionately promoted the Gothic style. He was inspired, among others, by Albrecht Dürer (1471 – 1528), widely recognized as the greatest German Renaissance artist. As part of the Birmingham-wide celebration of the bicentenary of Pugin’s birth, this display will showcase the eight prints and single drawing by … Read more
Treasures of Ancient Egypt The Myers Eton College Collection of Egyptian Antiquities is not only one of the most stunning assemblages of ancient Egyptian decorative art worldwide, but also a window into the distant world of travellers in 19th-century Egypt and the Middle East. Educated at Eton College and Sandhurst, Major William Joseph Myers (1858–1899) … Read more