Museum Quiz
I thought that seeing as under lockdown all our favourite museums and galleries around the world are closed we could do with some museum-related fun. So I’ve created a quiz based on some of the fascinating information in my book A Museum Miscellany. Do dive in and give it a go, answers to follow in a separate blog post. Good luck!
1. Which museum consistently tops the list of the most visited museum or gallery in the world?
a) National Museum of China
b) The Louvre
c) Metropolitan Museum of Art
d) The British Museum
2. Sir Hans Sloane’s incredible collection of natural history objects formed the basis for London’s Natural History Museum, but which fruit did he name?
a) avocado
b) banana
c) physalis
d) mango
3. True or false: The Night Watch by Rembrandt depicts a night scene?
4. The World’s smallest museum is housed inside what?
a) A tea-chest
b) A canoe
c) A telephone box
d) A shipping container
5. Which world famous museum is home to a large number of resident cats?
6. How many elephants feature in the American Museum of Natural History’s famous Hall of African Mammals diorama?
7. Which museum owns the most complete and scientifically valuable dodo remains in the world?
a) The Smithsonian
b) London’s Natural History Museum
c) The Grant Museum of Zoology
d) Oxford University Museum of Natural History
8. The largest single property theft took place in 1990 when thieves made off with artworks worth over $500 million from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, but how did the thieves disguise themselves?
a) As clowns
b) As museum guards
c) As police officers
d) As cleaners
9. How long did it take Picasso to paint his huge mural painting Guernica?
a) 3 weeks
b) 3 months
c) 3 days
d) 3 years
10. Put these museums in the order that they were established:
Musee des Beaux-arts et D’archaeologie (Besançon, France), Princess Ennigaldi’s Museum (Ur, Iraq), Ashmolean Museum (Oxford), Capitoline Museums (Rome, Italy).
11. What part of Sir John Heydon is preserved at Norwich Castle Museum? Bonus points if you know how the body part became separated from its owner.
12. Which museum is depicted in Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch?
13. Since 2018 the Museum of London have displayed a sample of the largest fatberg ever discovered – but just how big was it?
a) 27 metres long
b) 127 metres long
c) 526 metres long
d) 250 metres long
14. The Louvres is the largest art museum in the world. If you spent just 30 seconds looking at each object in the museum, how many days would it take you to see the whole collection?
a) 100 days
b) 10 days
c) 1,000 days
d) 57 days
15. It has long been tradition for incoming US presidents to request the loan of some artworks from America’s museums. Which artwork did Donald Trump request (and was refused)?
a) Whaam! By Roy Lichenstein
b) Dogs Playing Poker by Cassius Marcellus Coolidge
c) Landscape with Snow by Van Gogh
d) Water Lillies by Monet
Check the answers here. Why not share how well you did in the comments? If you enjoyed the quiz please do share it with your friends and family. Keen for more fabulous museum facts? Buy A Museum Miscellany here.