From the history of underwear, to the life-cycle of butterflies, the London calendar of culture is looking very exciting indeed. There’s always an exciting show to delve into, on subjects as varied as history, fashion, art and the natural world. London’s top museums are set to showcase an abundance of cracking museum exhibitions throughout the events calendar. Here are eight of the top museum exhibitions to catch in 2016.

1. Drawing on Childhood

Drawing on Childhood1
Drawing on Childhood brings together the work of major illustrators from the eighteenth century to the present day, who have created powerful images of characters in fiction who are orphaned, adopted, fostered or found.

The exhibition considers how illustrators of different generations have chosen key moments in stories from European folklore and fiction, and brought these child heroes to life. Exploring alternative childhoods, the show is inspired by Lemn Sissay’s 2014 Foundling Museum commission, Superman was a Foundling, which focused on the importance of looked-after children in popular culture.

Original drawings, first editions and special illustrated editions will be on display, featuring characters as diverse as James Trotter (James and the Giant Peach) who was orphaned as a young boy, Hetty Feather, who lived at the Foundling Hospital, and Rapunzel, whose parents gave her up as a child. Two original illustrations by Nancy Ekholm Burkert for the 1961 edition of Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach will be exhibited, alongside Arthur Rackham’s original 1919 drawing of Cinderella and the Fairy Godmother. Major illustrators and artists whose work will be on display include Quentin Blake, George Cruikshank, David Hockney, Phiz (Hablot K. Browne), Arthur Rackham, Thomas Rowlandson, Nick Sharratt and Stref.

To accompany the loaned works, the contemporary artists Pablo Bronstein, Chris Haughton and Posy Simmonds have been invited to produce a new illustration for Henry Fielding’s novel The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling, first published in 1749.

Venue: Foundling Museum, Bloomsbury
Date: Tuesday February 16 2016 – Sunday May 1 2016

2. Beyond Beauty: Transforming the Body in Ancient Egypt

Beyond Beauty: Transforming the Body in Ancient Egypt2

Beyond Beauty: Transforming the Body in Ancient Egypt1
The ancient Egyptian penchant for adorning the body is well documented, with plenty of historical information available about swaddled-up corpses (and plenty of films set in Egypt BC featuring Cleopatra’s lot balancing immoderate headdresses above kohl-lined eyes). It’s a big topic, to be sure, and you might reasonably expect this to be an expansive exhibition. But Two Temple Place isn’t the British Museum, and it’s not trying to be: instead, this select collection of archaeological booty has a charm all of its own.

Venue: Two Temple Place, Temple
Date: Until Sunday April 24 2016
Price: Free

3. Light, Time, Legacy: Francis Towne’s Watercolours of Rome

Light, Time, Legacy: Francis Towne’s Watercolours of Rome1

Light, Time, Legacy: Francis Towne’s Watercolours of Rome2
Come and experience 18th-century Rome through an astonishing series of watercolours not displayed together since 1805.

British artist Francis Towne (1739–1816) made a remarkable group of watercolours during a visit to Rome in 1780–1781. They include famous monuments such as the Colosseum, the Palatine Hill, ancient baths and temples, and the Forum. These watercolours were Towne’s way of delivering a moral warning to 18th-century Britain not to make the same mistakes – and suffer the same fate – as ancient Rome. 2016 marks the 200th anniversary of their bequest to the British Museum.

Towne’s 52 views of Rome are among the great creative landmarks in the use of watercolour within British art. They played a central role both in Towne’s career, and in the revival of his reputation in the 20th century. They were his main claim for recognition in the London art world and he continued to revise and work on them throughout his life. The views of Rome were the centrepiece of Towne’s one-man retrospective exhibition in London in 1805, and have not been displayed together since. When Towne bequeathed them to the Museum in 1816, they became his permanent public legacy. In addition to the views of Rome, the exhibition will feature further views of Italy by Towne and other works on paper by his contemporaries in Rome, including the important recent acquisition A Panoramic view of Rome by Giovanni Battista Lusieri (1755–1821).

The exhibition highlights the enduring fascination of the ruined grandeur of ancient Rome and the beauty of the surrounding countryside. The drawings offer a unique means of exploring these sights through the poetic gaze of one of the 18th century’s greatest graphic artists – whose work has taken two centuries to be fully appreciated.

Venue: British Museum, Bloomsbury
Date: Until Sunday August 14 2016
Price: Free

4. Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age

Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age2

Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age1
An exhibition telling the remarkable story of how Russia launched the space age

Once upon a time, only 70-odd years ago, space travel was just a twinkle in the eye of astrophysicists. But in 1957 Sputnik was sent up there, followed four years later by the first human to enter space, Yuri Gagarin. This exhibition tells the story of how Russia won the race and became the first country to explore the galaxy that lies beyond our own planet. The capsule flown by Valentina Tereshkova, the first ever woman in space, and find out what gadgets astronauts need to perform everyday tasks up there. See moving testimonies and memorabilia from some of space travel’s biggest names and hear how its pioneers made lift off happen.

Venue: Science Museum
Date: Until Sunday March 13 2016
Price: £14

5. Samuel Pepys: Plague, Fire and Revolution

Samuel Pepys: Plague, Fire and Revolution1

Samuel Pepys: Plague, Fire and Revolution2
Delve into the turbulent history of Stuart London with famous diarist Samuel Pepys as your guide in the National Maritime Museum’s current major exhibition.

Samuel Pepys was one of the most colourful and appealing characters of the 17th century, and witness to the great events that shaped Stuart Britain, brilliantly brought to life in his famous diary. He lived through a time of turmoil which saw kings fighting for their crowns, the devastation of medieval London by plague, fire and war, and its resurrection as a world city.

The exhibition features 200 paintings and objects from museums, galleries and private collections across Britain and beyond.

Venue: National Maritime Museum
Date: Until Monday March 28 2016
Price: £12, £10 concs £6 children

6. Leonardo da Vinci: The Mechanics of Genius

Leonardo da Vinci: The Mechanics of Genius1

Leonardo da Vinci: The Mechanics of Genius2
As you pitched up to work this morning in your driverless submersible gyrocopter, you probably didn’t stop to consider that pretty much every bit of kit at your disposal (well, some of it, at least) began life in the mind and on the drawing board of sixteenth-century painter and inventor Leonardo da Vinci. Yet, as revealed by this mind-boggling offering from the Science Museum, without Leo and his restless desire to shake up the bits of the world he knew and divine the bits he didn’t, we’d be stuck – possibly in the sixteenth century.

Venue: Science Museum
Date: Until Monday March 28 2016
Price: £10 concs available

7. Wildlife Photographer of the Year

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Wildlife Photographer of the Year2
The acclaimed Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition premieres at London’s Natural History Museum each year before touring more than 60 cities in the UK and across the world. It showcases the award-winning images, bringing the talent and vision of each photographer to all who visit.

Venue: Natural History Museum , Brompton
Date: Until Sunday April 10 2016
Price: £13.50, £6.75 children & concs

8. Otherworlds: Visions of our Solar System

Otherworlds: Visions of our Solar System1

Otherworlds: Visions of our Solar System2
Space. To go, boldly or otherwise, isn’t really an option for most of us, despite the advent of contactless TfL payment. But we have sent countless craft, probes and bits of hardware, as well as the odd mammal, into the heavens. And they have returned with or beamed back screeds of technical information – now held in the archives of various space agencies. It’s this data that artist and writer Michael Benson sifts through, taking individual frames of often grainy black-and-white footage to come up with the seamless colour montages of celestial goings-on in this show.

Venue: Natural History Museum , Brompton
Date: Until Sunday May 22 2016
Price: £11, £5 concs

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