The British Museum's first Ball took its colour from Ancient India: living traditions, drew nearly 900 guests to Bloomsbury and raised more than £2.5 million.
The British Museum held a Ball of its own for the first time on Saturday 18 October 2025, with dinner laid among the collection in Bloomsbury. Isha Ambani chaired the evening alongside the Director, Dr Nicholas Cullinan.
Founded in 1753 on the 71,000 objects of Sir Hans Sloane, the museum opened in 1759 as the first national museum to cover every field of human knowledge. It counted 6.5 million visits the year before the Ball, the most of any building in the United Kingdom.
The first Ball raised money for its international partnerships, which reach from Great Russell Street to excavations at Girsu in Iraq and at Benin City.
The evening took its colour from the exhibition Ancient India: living traditions, and guests walked a pink carpet up to the south colonnade. In the Great Court the Chair of Trustees, George Osborne, announced a £10.3 million pledge from the Garfield Weston Foundation.
Anoushka Shankar played sitar with the Jules Buckley Orchestra before dinner, served in hand-painted tiffin tins across the galleries. Tom Odell and M.I.A. joined the orchestra later.
Nearly 900 guests attended, seven in ten of them new to the museum, and the night raised more than £2.5 million.