Human image: masterpieces of figurative art

It's the primordial image, created in a boundless variety of formats and used to express fundamental ideas concerning the human condition.

This compelling exhibition comprises a superb and highly varied selection of human images from the collection of the British Museum. Many are charged with complex symbolism, association and meaning; others provide striking depictions of observed reality. They are all instruments of identity: mirrored images of ourselves, models of who we think we are and how we wish to appear to the world.