For the first time since the middle of Queen Victoria's reign, a non-Briton has been tapped as director of the British Museum. He's Hartwig Fischer, director the Dresden's City Art Collections. Ironically, the man he will replace is moving to Berlin as a consultant on a new museum soon to open there.
The new director has also served in museums in Essen, Bonn and Basel. The last non-Briton to head the nearly 300-year-old British Museum was Italian-born Anthony Panizzi, who served from 1856 to 1867. The museum's permanent collection of over 8 million objects and artworks from around the world is one of the largest in the world.
The retiring director, Neil MacGregor, will be an advisor to the German Ministry of Culture on the Humboldt Forum, which will be housed in the reconstructed old Imperial palace now under construction. It will become a museum housing treasures from Germany's monarchical past.
Italy has also recently hired a number of foreign experts to head some of its museums, as we reported HERE in August. For more details on the British Museum story from TheLocal.de, click HERE
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