OXFORD’s Ashmolean Museum could see its biggest year yet as it nears the opening of a series of new exhibitions.

Staff at the attraction are already toasting the success of 2013 and 2014, when 82,000 people came to see its Cézanne and the Modern show and 45,000 viewed Francis Bacon Henry Moore: Flesh and Bone.

And two weeks ago it announced that through a Government inheritance tax scheme, it had acquired its first painting by major British landscape artist John Constable.

But the best days could still be ahead, it is hoped, as a December exhibition about English painter and poet William Blake approaches as well as a collection in the new year dedicated to exotic Renaissance objects.

Director Dr Alexander Sturgis, who took the post on October 1, also revealed on Friday an anonymous benefactor had pledged to match any future donations to the museum’s trust.

It is hoped that the trust will help secure the museum’s future by contributing 20 per cent of its running costs – about £2m – each year.

Dr Sturgis said: “It is difficult to believe how much has happened. I am in particular really looking forward to the William Blake exhibition, which will be fantastic.”

Central to the show, to open on December 4 and run to March 1, will be a faithful recreation of Blake’s studio.

The exact dimensions of the artist’s space in Lambeth were gleaned from newly discovered papers dating back to the 19th Century.

It is where Blake created some of his illuminated books and developed his method of colour printing.

Dr Sturgis added: “It is a really exciting place to be at the moment.

“The Ashmolean’s collections are breathtaking, as is the depth of many of them.”

Also set to open next year is a section of the museum dedicated to the Wellby Collection, bequeathed by Michael Wellby in 2012.

The vast and eccentric collection of Renaissance silverware and exotic items is to be flaunted as Oxford’s own “Green Vault” of Dresden.

It includes 500 pieces of rare gilded objects and is one of the most significant bequests the museum has ever received.

Items range from the fantastical to the outright bizarre and together rival the “Kunstkammers” – cabinets of curiosities – assembled by European royals between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries.

Currently a small portion of the objects are on display, but more will be brought out once a dedicated space on the second floor is completed for them.

Ashmolean spokeswoman Claire Parris said in 2013 the museum had 831,000 visitors.

So far this year it has welcomed 740,000 visitors.

It is hoped that by the end of December, that total could rise to 875,000 and that next year new exhibitions could raise the annual figure further.

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