Experience the Museums Virtually
Here we bring you museums from across the world that offer virtual tours.
Museums within the UK :-
British Museum - London
There are several for you to stay curious and explore the Museum.
Virtual Museum tours with Google Street View : Did you know that the Museum is the world’s largest indoor space on Google Street View? You can go on a virtual visit to more than 60 galleries – perfect for creating your own bespoke tour around your favourites. See highlights like the Rosetta Stone in the Egyptian Sculpture Gallery. Drop into the Egyptian Sculpture Gallery
Virtual Galleries: You can explore the extensive Prints and Drawings collection to see Old Masters such as Dürer and Michelangelo or see new and exciting contemporary pieces. Dive into the incredible Oceania collection and uncover a vast array of objects from Australia, New Guinea and the many islands dotted across the South Pacific Ocean. Step into the galleries here
- Learning with Digital Resources : Whether you’re searching for a little inspiration or more in-depth resources, the Museum has a broad range of free learning resources available on the website, covering ages 3–16+. Excite inquisitive minds as you teach them how Egyptian mummies were made, or learn about what the Romans ate and drank. Explore the full range of online resources
Google Arts & Culture : Discover more than 7,000 objects on Google’s online hub of content from museums and archives around the world. As well as collection information and images, the Google Arts & Culture pages also feature online exhibits such as Egypt: faith after the pharaohs and Street Views of sites in Central and South America. Plus, download the Google Arts & Culture app to see more special features, and see art in your own home via AR. Explore British Museum on Google Arts & Culture .While you’re there, check out the interactive experience The Museum of the World. A mind-boggling visualisation of how two million years of human cultures and histories are interconnected, this interactive timeline is illustrated with objects from the British Museum collection.
- Online collection: The collection is available to everyone on Collection online. You can search for objects and images using keywords, or try filtering by place, artist or material if you’re feeling more expert. You may find this handy guide useful for navigating the site. Collection online homepage
Courtesy : https://blog.britishmuseum.org/how-to-explore-the-british-museum-from-home/
National Gallery - London
Take in panoramic views of the National Gallery on a Google Street View tour. Created back in 2016, this tour covers Rooms 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15 in the gallery, as well as its Central Hall. This gives you access to over 300 Renaissance masterpieces, along with description on individual art works.
Take a virtual tour of the National Gallery
National Gallery has also teamed up with Oculus using Matterport’s 3D camera technology the new to create a virtual reality experience of the Sainsbury Wing.Enjoy over 270 paintings in virtual reality with a VR headset, or browse a 360 tour on your desktop or mobile. Access the 3D virtual of Sainsbury wing here
Courtesy :https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/
The Courtauld Gallery - London
The virtual tour uses a photographic technique to show The Courtauld Gallery and their collection in exceptional close-up quality.
You can roam each room of the Gallery, as it was before it temporarily closed in September 2018, and zoom in to look closely at masterpieces from their collection such as Vincent van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear or Édouard Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, from individual brush strokes to the texture of the paint.
This virtual tour shows the Gallery before it closed in September 2018.
Courtesy:https://courtauld.ac.uk/
Natural History Museum - London
Delve into the Museum from home with a virtual self-guided tour of the galleries, an interactive experience about Hope the blue whale and audio guides narrated by Sir David Attenborough.
The Wonder of Nature exhibition : Step into an online world full of fantastic real-life and magical beasts. There are highlights, stories and games galore. Walk around the exhibition from home with a 360° virtual tour on Google Arts & Culture. Explore here.
The life of a blue whale : Explore the rich history of Hope, the blue whale suspended from the ceiling in Hintze Hall. In this online interactive, see what her life was like in the ocean, find out how she got to her home in the Museum and get a behind-the-scenes peek of the Museum’s collections.Go one step further by viewing the skeleton in augmented reality (AR) with Google Arts & Culture here.
Hintze Hall :Sir David’s unmistakable voice and expertise on all things nature make him the perfect person to take you on a tour of Hintze Hall’s star specimens (including the blue marlin), all from the comfort of home. Click here.
- Virtual Tour of the Museum : Google Arts & Culture gives you access to 300,000 specimens within the Museum’s collections, along with 35 digital exhibitions, virtual tours and an interactive gigapixel photo (so enormous you can zoom in on the tiniest detail) of Hintze Hall’s gilded canopy. Visit The virtual tour here.
Courtesy: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/
RAF Museum - London
Here’s one for the aviation buffs. Explore the Royal Airforce Museum’s Bomber Hall, Historic Hangers, and former airfield controller — AKA Grahame White Watch Office — from the comfort of your own home. Explore the different tours here.
Courtesy:https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/
The Pitt Rivers Museum - Oxford
The Pitt Rivers Museum is a museum displaying the archaeological and anthropological collections of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. The museum is located to the east of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and can only be accessed through that building.
Construction started in 1885 and was completed in 1886.
The original donation consisted of approximately 22,000 items; this has now grown to 500,000 items, many of which have been donated by travellers, scholars and missionaries.
It has the largest collection of archaeological and anthropological artifacts in the UK.
The virtual tour can be enjoyed here. There are also cultural spaces that can be accessed here.
The museum also has 3D virtual exhibitions that can be accessed here.
Courtesy: https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/
The Old Royal Naval College - Greenwich
The beautiful Painted Hall is the highlight of any visit to the Old Royal Naval College.
Painted in the early 18th century by Sir James Thornhill, the hall features 40,000 square feet of walls and ceilings. These surfaces are covered in striking paintings depicting 200 figures including kings, queens and mythological creatures.
The virtual tour lets you marvel up-close at fire-breathing serpents, glistening jewels and bubble-blowing cherubs that are not clearly visible from the ground. Pan around and zoom in to marvel at the details in ultra-high resolution and discover the stories behind the art.
The virtual tour is available in English and British Sign Language (with subtitles).Just choose the language you prefer when asked. Explore the Painted Hall online
Courtesy: https://ornc.org/
STEAM Museum - Swindon
People with a passion for railway heritage can now enjoy the various displays and exhibitions from Swindon’s STEAM Museum from the comfort of their own homes .Through the new interactive virtual tour of Brunel’s famous STEAM Museum visitors can explore the galleries of the museum, see iconic GWR locomotives and memorabilia, access home-schooling resources, and play interactive games from home.
The tour can be accessed here.
Courtesy :https://www.steam-museum.org.uk/
Windsor Guildhall and Museum - Windsor
Windsor and Royal Borough Museum is a local history museum, exploring the history of the town of Windsor and the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead, in the English county of Berkshire. It is accommodated within Windsor Guildhall which is a Grade 1 listed building. The museum is managed as part of the local authority of the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead.
The virtual tour can be accessed here.
There is also a video tour on YouTube .
Courtesy:http://windsormuseum.org.uk/
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery - Birmingham
You can now look inside Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery without having to be there. Filmed in summer 2019, these four tours show you all the art and history galleries.
The Round Room, Industrial Gallery and Edwardian Tearooms
You will begin in the iconic Round Room, where visitors arrive having walked up from the main entrance.
These areas of the museum and art gallery date to 1885 when the building opened.Explore here. For VR headsets:Here.
Art Galleries
Staying on the same floor, you are now in the extension, opened in 1919. Take a walk through 700 years of art, as the galleries take you from the 14th to 20th century.
Explore here. For VR headsets:Here.
Staffordshire Hoard Gallery
The Staffordshire Hoard gallery tells the story of the Staffordshire Hoard, the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever found.
Explore here. For VR headsets:Here.
History Galleries
Take a walk through Birmingham History in the ‘Birmingham: its people, its history’ gallery, which covers the majority of the 3rd floor.
You can also see art and objects spanning seven centuries of European and World history and culture. This includes the Greeks & Romans and Ancient Egypt galleries.
Explore here. For VR headsets:Here.
Courtesy: https://www.birminghammuseums.org.uk/
International Museums:-
Vatican Museum - Vatican City
While the online experience might not stand nowhere close to visiting the majestic place in person, the fourteen immersive online tours available on its website offer a 360° view of the sheer scale of its buildings including the renowned Sistine Chapel, without having to make the extensive travel.
They can be viewed here .
Courtesy:https://www.museivaticani.va/
Musée du Louvre - Paris
Visit the museum rooms and galeries, admire the palace architecture and enjoy the views!
THE ADVENT OF THE ARTIST
For its 5th edition, the Petite Galerie takes a closer look at the transition from the typically anonymous craftsman of the classical period to the artist of the Renaissance, featuring works by Delacroix, Rembrandt, Tintoret and more.
POWER PLAYS
This third Petite Galerie exhibition focused on the connection between art and political power, from antiquity to the present day.
THE BODY IN MOVEMENT
In its second season, the Petite Galerie explored one of the performing arts: dance. How did artists use different materials and techniques to represent movement?
FOUNDING MYTHS: FROM HERCULES TO DARTH VADER
The very first Petite Galerie exhibition looked into how illustrators, sculptors, painters, puppeteers, filmmakers, and musicians around the world have drawn inspiration from myths, given them form, and brought them to life.
The Mona Lisa in virtual reality in your own home : More info here
Courtesy:https://www.louvre.fr/en
Metropolitan Museum of Art - New York
This award-winning series of six short videos invites viewers around the world to virtually visit The Met’s art and architecture in a fresh, immersive way. Created using spherical 360° technology, it allows viewers to explore some of the Museum’s iconic spaces as never before.
Viewers can experience the magic of standing in an empty gallery after-hours, witnessing a bustling space in time-lapse, or floating high above The Met Cloisters for a bird’s-eye view. We strung cables, removed protective covers from works of art, and rigged cameras up high, all to allow viewers to explore The Met as never before.
They can be accessed here.
Courtesy:https://www.metmuseum.org/
Guggenheim Museum - New York
Founded in 1937, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is dedicated to promoting the understanding and appreciation of art, primarily of the modern and contemporary periods, through exhibitions, education programs, research initiatives, and publications.
Virtual tour of the museum can be accessed here.
Courtesy:https://www.guggenheim.org/
Salar Jung Museum - Hyderabad,India
Popularly known for its one of the largest one-man collection of the world, Salar Jung Museum is the third largest museum in India.Most of the museum comes from the personal collection of the Salar Jung family.The virtual tour can be accessed from the comfort of your couch with immersive videos on its virtual galleries and exhibitions.
Explore the virtual tours here.
Courtesy:https://salarjungmuseum.in/index.html
National Museum - New Delhi
The Museum presently holds approximately 2,00,000 objects of diverse nature, both Indian as well as foreign, and its holdings cover a time span of more than five thousand years of Indian cultural heritage.NM has 29 permanent galleries, on three floors, representing the museum’s diverse collection, which represent the rich heritage of India.
Digital presence of NM is on ‘Google art project’, ‘virtual art galleries’ and through volunteer guides and audio guide our attempt is to enrich the visitor’s experience of the museum.
Various virtual exhibitions can be accessed at National Museum virtual and online exhibition site.
For virtual tour can be accessed here.
Courtesy:http://www.nationalmuseumindia.gov.in/en
Musée d’Orsay - Paris
Musée d’Orsay is housed in a magnificent train station building, which is a historic site constructed for the 1900 World Fair.
The Orsay is an internationally renowned art museum which houses mostly French art dating from 1848 to 1914 including the largest collection of impressionist and post-impressionist masterpieces in the world.The Musée d’Orsay is the 3rd most visited museum in Paris and the 10th one globally.
The virtual tour of the museum can be enjoyed here.
Also check out 5 scandalous works at Musée here.
Courtesy:https://www.musee-orsay.fr/fr
National Gallery of Art - Washington DC
The National Gallery of Art serves the nation by welcoming all people to explore and experience art, creativity, and our shared humanity.
“An exuberant display of fecund imagination and keen observation, Edgar Degas’s renowned images of the Paris Opéra are among the most sophisticated and visually compelling works he ever created. Celebrating the 350th anniversary of the Opéra’s founding, Degas at the Opéra will present approximately 100 of the artist’s best-known and beloved works in a range of media, including paintings, pastels, drawings, prints, and sculpture.” Degas at the Opéra Virtual Tour :here
The exhibits can be viewed online here.
Courtesy: https://www.nga.gov/
Van Gogh Museum - Amsterdam
Find plenty of tips to enjoy the Van Gogh Museum from home. There is something for everyone: explore the artworks in the online collection, watch the 4K virtual tours on YouTube, get creative or dive into compelling stories about Vincent van Gogh.
Pergamon Museum - Berlin
The Pergamon Museum is located on “Museum Island” in Berlin, Germany. The museum is famous for housing large monumental historic Babylonian, Greek and Roman buildings such as the Ishtar Gate of Babylon, the Pergamon Altar and the Market Gate of Miletus.
The Pergamon Museum was built between 1910 and 1930 and is named after one of its key attractions, The Pergamon Altar.
Street view tour of the museum on Google Maps ->here.
The museum can be access online on Google Arts and culture ->here.
Courtesy:https://www.smb.museum/en/museums-institutions/pergamonmuseum/home/
National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art - Seoul
The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA) is a contemporary art museum with the main museum in Gwacheon and three branches each in Deoksugung, Seoul and Cheongju. The museum was first established in 1969 as the only national art museum in the country accommodating modern and contemporary art of Korea and international art of different time periods.
The online tour can be accessed via Google arts and culture -> here.
Courtesy:https://www.mmca.go.kr/eng/
Uffizi Gallery - Florence
The Uffizi Gallery is a prominent art museum located adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy.The Gallery entirely occupies the first and second floors of the large building constructed between 1560 and 1580 and designed by Giorgio Vasari.
The virtual tour of ten rooms in the Uffizi, starts with the Sala delle Dinastie and its portraits of the Medici and the Della Rovere, two families who had an instrumental role in the Uffizi’s current collection.The tour proceeds from the titans of the Florentine High Renaissance, including Bronzino, Vasari and Pontormo, to those of sixteenth-century Venice. In Titian’s Venus of Urbino, these latter rooms have one of the most recognisable images in Renaissance art; they also contain works by Tintoretto, Veronese and Sebastiano del Piombo.The tour comprises 55 artworks in all, which can be viewed from a variety of angles and distances.
The virtual tour can be accessed here and the buontalenti grotto can be viewed here.
The website also hosts a lot of online exhibitions here including my favourite “To rebehold the stars” -a tribute for the 700 years since the Master Poet Dante’s death.
Courtesy:https://www.uffizi.it/en/
MASP - São Paulo
The São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP) is an art museum located on Paulista Avenue in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. It is well known for its headquarters, a 1968 concrete and glass structure designed by Lina Bo Bardi, whose main body is supported by two lateral beams over a 74 metres (243 ft) freestanding space, considered a landmark of the city and a main symbol of modern Brazilian architecture.
Enjoy 360 virtual views here .
You can also explore MASP here in Google Arts and Culture.
Courtesy:https://masp.org.br/en
National Museum of Anthropology - Mexico
National Museum of Anthropology (Museo Nacional de Antropologia) in Mexico City contains the world’s largest collection of ancient Mexican art and also has ethnographic exhibits about Mexico’s present-day indigenous groups.It is the largest and most visited museum in Mexico.
Highlights:
– The Sun Stone or Aztec Calendar
– Recreation of Pakal’s tomb in Maya exhibit room
– Jade mask of the Zapotec Bat God in Oaxaca exhibit room
A virtual tour on Google Arts and Culture can be accessed here.
Courtesy:https://www.mna.inah.gob.mx/
The J. Paul Getty Museum - Los Angeles
The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa.The Getty Center is located in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles and features pre-20th-century European paintings, drawings, illuminated manuscripts, sculpture, decorative arts, and photographs from the inception of photography through present day from all over the world.
Virtual tour of the museum can be enjoyed here.
Courtesy:https://www.getty.edu/museum/
Rijksmuseum - Amsterdam
The Rijksmuseum is a Dutch national museum dedicated to arts and history in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the borough Amsterdam South, close to the Van Gogh Museum, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and the Concertgebouw.
You can explore large sections of the museum from-home or go for interactive virtual tours and video tours.
Courtesy:https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en