Known for its medieval statuary and broad avenues, Georgian terraces and riverside pubs, Oxford sounds idyllic.

The rich fine arts & history collection spotlights medieval statuary, engravings and lustrous faience (glazed pottery).

On the ground floor, there's exquisite porcelain and faïence, much of it of local provenance, while in the basement you'll find classical archaeology, medieval statuary and intricate 18th-century models of the fortified cities of northern France and Belgium.

And, at Yale University, a group of art history professors distressed about a recently commissioned Serra sculpture (it would displace medieval and Renaissance statuary in the school's Sculpture Hall), drafted a letter to the director of the university gallery asking that the commission be rescinded.

Exquisite porcelain and faience (pottery), much of it of local provenance, is on the ground floor, while in the basement you'll find classical archaeology, medieval statuary and 18th-century scale models of the fortified cities of northern France and Belgium.

Soon afterward he was apprenticed to an engraver, and he was to encounter lifelike images of Jesus and his apostles among the medieval statuary and tomb carvings at Westminster Abbey that he was commissioned to sketch.