Permanent Exhibitions

• Location: William Fehr Collection at the Castle of Good Hope

The exhibition showcases a selection of Iziko’s rich and diverse ceramic holdings. The focus is on ceramics made in South Africa from earliest times through to the contemporary, including inspirational examples from Asia...

• Location: South African National Gallery

Numbering over 400 items including paintings, prints and drawings, the Sir Abe Bailey Bequest is the largest bequest held at the SA National Gallery to this day. It also constitutes one of the largest collections of...

• Location: Michaelis Collection at the Old Town House

This exhibition is a reconfiguration of the Iziko Michaelis Collection of Dutch and Flemish paintings. The Old Town House has been re-hung to resemble the way in which pictures were hung in Dutch homes in the 1600's....

• Location: Bo-Kaap Museum

In the Community Hall

This exhibition shows the findings of a mapping survey project undertaken a few years ago. Residents were asked why they enjoyed living in the area, and to identify areas in the Bo-Kaap that have...

• Location: Slave Lodge

The range of objects displayed in this exhibition at the Slave Lodge – including puppets, furniture, weapons and fashion objects – reveals in a general sense the rich diversity of cultural backgrounds of the slaves...

• Location: Slave Lodge

The Iziko Slave Lodge has a number of galleries that explore the history of slavery at the Cape. Built in 1679,mthe original building was used to confine men, women and children transported – mainly by the VOC (DutchmEast...

• Location: South African Museum

World of Water

Depicting life in our oceans. The Sunlit Sea exhibit shows a kelp forest habitat and animals of the Open Ocean including a 4.9 m white shark, a leatherback turtle and a broadbill swordfish. The latest...

• Location: Maritime Centre

The Iziko Maritime Centre provides an overview of shipping in Cape Town. Images depicting Table Bay from the 17th to 20th century give an idea of the development of the harbour. Exhibitions include the earliest existing...

• Location: Maritime Centre

During the First World War, the cargo vessel Mendi was converted to a troopship. In 1917 she carried a group of the South African Native Labour Contingent to help with the war effort in France. On the final leg of her...

• Location: Bo-Kaap Museum

In this exhibition, co-curated by Mahmudah Begum Jaffer, selected artifacts from the Social History Collections of Iziko Museums form part of the display, together with images of decorative art from mosques around Cape...

• Location: Bo-Kaap Museum

New Year Carnival and the Alibama is a new exhibition introducing the history of Cape Town’s New Year carnival. In particular, the stories behind the famous Afrikaans song, ‘Die Alibama’, sung in Cape Town from the second...

• Location: South African Museum

Noteworthy events during the lifetime of this tree, planted about 1850 in the Public Gardens. Tree struck by lightning, felled and removed 1939.

CROSS-SECTION THROUGH NORFOLK ISLAND PINE

Noteworthy events during the...

• Location: South African Museum

Introduction

The giant squid, one of the last great mysteries of the sea, has not yet been seen alive. A creature of myth and wonder, an early specimen was described as a merman or sea monk in 16th century Denmark.

• Location: South African Museum

Evidence of life in the Karoo from 300 million years ago; dioramas of ancient Karoo reptiles; fossil mammals of the Cape four million years ago.

• Location: South African Museum

This exhibition has been 250 million years in the making. It features the fossilised skeletons of long-extinct reptiles that ruled the land areas of the world some 50 million years before the dinosaurs. Highlights include...

• Location: Planetarium

An open display featuring three large iron meteorites.

• Location: South African Museum

A display depicting a cosmic zoom to view the universe on an ever increasing scale, reaching back to almost the very beginning of our universe.

• Location: South African Museum

African Dinosaurs tells the story of dinosaurs from an African perspective. Realistic dioramas of ancient Karoo landscapes with fleshed-up reconstructions of some of our South African dinosaurs help bring the fossils back...

• Location: South African Museum

The exhibition comprises a selection of 20 objects highlighting the beauty and diversity of natural forms across space and time. Amongst others, fossilized freshwater fish from the Triassic period, ammonites from the...

• Location: South African Museum

A unique collection of whale casts and skeletons, to be seen from all floors; includes a 20.5 metre blue whale skeleton.

• Location: William Fehr Collection at the Castle of Good Hope
• Location: Rust en Vreugd

Cape Town businessman, William Fehr (1892–1968), first loaned this collection of oil paintings, furniture, ceramics, metal and glassware for public exhibition at the Castle in 1952. In 1964, the South African...

• Location: Bo-Kaap Museum

The city of Cape Town was built over almost three centuries of colonial rule.

This exhibition explores early expansion of the city, racial discrimination even prior to apartheid, and working life in the city. It is...

• Location: Koopmans-de Wet House

This house museum was originally built as the home for a well-to do Cape family during the late 18th century. It houses some of the best pieces of Cape furniture and silver in the country, in addition to a priceless...

• Location: South African Museum

2009 saw the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, as well as the 150th anniversary of the publication of his book, On the Origin of Species. His theory on the evolution of life through natural selection...

• Location: Michaelis Collection at the Old Town House

A fresh and full installation of the Iziko Michaelis Collection, Cape Town's famous collection of 17th-century Dutch and Flemish paintings, is now on view.

The rehang not only seeks to emulate the sense of abundance of...

• Location: South African Museum

Virtual Earth takes the form of a Gaiasphere, an interactive digital theatre housed in a large (3.2 m diameter) back-projected hemisphere with which animations of changes happening on the earth’s surface can be shown....