Tuesday 7 April is Day 7 of #MuseumsUnlocked—and we're going to visit the museums and galleries of Britain's Second City (and the city I grew up in) - Birmingham! Brum may be on lockdown but we can still celebrate its visual and material culture by sharing photos with each other!

There are so many galleries and museums in Birmingham but to kick off #MuseumsUnlocked, here are some contributions from me from @BM_AG.
For starters - here is the bronze sculpture that's welcomed visitors to the Museum and Art Gallery since 1947—Lucifer by Jacob Epstein

Here's a display of early 1980s home computing from @BM_AG's contemporary collecting gallery #MuseumsUnlocked

1970s worker's hat and employee handbooks from Birmingham's iconic HP Factory, also from the @BM_AG contemporary collecting gallery. Any Brummie of my generation will remember that distinctive factory smell as you drove into town on the Aston Expressway. #MuseumsUnlocked

An 8th century inscribed gold strip from the Staffordshire Hoard, on display at @BM_AG. The passage is from Numbers 10:35— "Rise up, Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered; and let them that hate thee flee before thee." #MuseumsUnlocked

Also from the Staffordshire Hoard: two gold snakes, 8th century CE, seen at @BM_AG. Originally mounts (for an unknown object) #MuseumsUnlocked

The Folded Cross—an incredibly powerful, 1,200-year-old object from among the Anglo-Saxon Staffordshire Hoard, on which so much great conservation work was done at @BM_AG #MuseumsUnlocked

Just one more shot of the Staffordshire Hoard on display at @BM_AG—showing conservation in action was one great dimension of how Birmingham colleagues managed the public engagement dimension of the hoard, both in Brum and at the @PotteriesMuseum in Stoke. #MuseumsUnlocked

As a teenager visiting @BM_AG, one of my favourite things to see was this painting—Henry Wallis’ The Stone Breaker (1857) #MuseumsUnlocked