16 June to 27 September

The Fitzwilliam Museum, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RB Tuesday – Saturday: 10.00 – 17.00 Free admission

Landscapes, portrait miniatures and flower drawings by masters including Samuel Palmer and Paul Cézanne – the collection of watercolours in the Fitzwilliam Museum is one of the finest in the world.

Rarely exhibited and in superb condition, the works on show highlight the extraordinary versatility of the medium, showing how it was used from the Middle Ages onwards to illuminate manuscripts, paint delicate likenesses, accurately record botanical detail and to capture fleeting moments of nature.

Drawn exclusively from the Fitzwilliam’s collections, the exhibition includes miniatures by Nicholas Hilliard and Isaac Oliver, botanical drawings by Pierre-Joseph Redouté, as well as a series of superb landscape watercolours by John Constable, Peter de Wint, John Sell Cotman, Samuel Palmer, J. M. Whistler, John Singer Sargent, Paul Cézanne, Camille Pissarro and Paul Nash.

The show will be complemented by an exhibition in the Shiba Gallery of watercolours by J.M.W. Turner, many given to the Museum by his greatest champion, John Ruskin.