All the pretty things
Victoria and Albert Museum
Often abbreviated to the V&A, the Victoria and Albert museum is the world’s largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts, and design, with a collection of over 2.8 million objects spanning 5,000 years of history.
The museum finds its origins in the Great Exhibition of 1851, a project in which Henry Cole and Prince Albert worked together. The Museum of Manufactures was first established in 1852 with Cole as director, and was kept at Marlborough House, though later that same year it moved to Somerset House. Prince Albert supported Cole in this endeavor, assisting in the acquisition of land in South Kensington for a new museum building in 1854.
The museum opened officially in 1857 as the South Kensington Museum, being the first museum in the world to provide researchers and guests with a catering service, and offering late-night openings for the first time thanks to the then-new invention of gas lighting. The institution changed its name to the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1899.
In Alice Procter‘s The Whole Picture (which is a fantastic book that you should definitely read if you’re into museums), she described the V&A as being a “Classroom Museum,” meaning that it was meant to be a collection of objects gathered to educate its audiences. It originally even had a room where “bad” art was placed, in order to teach those who visited about taste, the danger being that it then became an institution that sought to impose its own ideas on what was and wasn’t art, what was and wasn’t good, and what was and wasn’t worthy of attention or study.
My mind was a little blown when I first saw this. There really is a whole chapel, brought all the way from Florence, in this museum. The chapel in question is from a Franciscan convent dedicated to Saint Clare, and it is the only Italian Renaissance chapel that can be seen outside of Italy.
The Cast Courts are easily the star of the museum, their main exhibition being copies of famous artworks. While the practice of producing copies of illustrious sculptures originally harks back to the 16th century, the 19th century saw a growth in interest in Medieval Art, resulting in the production of many copies, some of which have even survived the original works.
The collecting of casts at the V&A became systematic in the 1860s, with many being acquired from firms and other museums in the following decades, or directly commissioned by the museum. The Cast Courts themselves were designed by Major General Henry Scott of the Royal Engineers, and opened to the public in 1873. They’re done in a grand scale, taking into account the large size of some of its casts — for example, Trajan’s Column, which was nevertheless split in two.
Reproduction of Michelangelo’s Moses, from San Pietro in Vincoli.
Reproduction of the Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise, from the Battistero di San Giovanni in Florence.
At center, reproduction of sculpture of Giuliano de’ Medici, from the Sagrestia Nuova in the Medici Chapel in Florence.
Reproduction of Michelangelo’s David, the original of which is held at the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence.
On the left, reproduction of the Pulpit of Pisa Cathedral. The one currently held in the church is a reconstruction based on the original, and using pieces of it, while this cast shows precisely how it looked when Pisano completed it.
Reproduction of the central doorway of S. Petronio in Bologna, by Jacopo della Quercia.
Reproduction of Trajan’s Column, part of the Fori Imperiali in Rome.
Reproduction of the Portico de la Gloria, from the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.
The gallery also has a walkway from which to admire the space and objects from above, which I highly recommend making some time for.
The V&A makes it a point to express how important the Cast Courts were to people when they originally opened, making it possible to bring a bit of the world into London. It’s good to know that the British do understand the concept of bringing things back without having to take the original.
The V&A also holds a vast collection of art from Asia, with more than 16,000 objects. It has an important collection of Chinese Art, and its South Asian Art collection is purportedly the most important in the West.
These objects are known as inro, which were traditional Japanese cases to hold small objects. They are worn attached to the obi, which is the sash tied around the waist of a kimono.
The V&A holds over 19,000 objects from the Islamic world, ranging from the 7th century to the early 20th. The objects originate from Spain, Afghanistan, North Africa, the Middle East, and East Asia.
The V&A holds the largest and most comprehensive glass and ceramics collection in the world, with over 80,000 objects. It is held at the top floor of the building, with pieces on view, as well as visible storage displaying much of the reserve collection.
Edwin Henry Landseer was an English painter and sculptor best known for his paintings of animals, mostly horses, stags, and dogs. And if this is not the largest (and most beautiful) painting of a dog you’ve ever seen, you’re lying.
In between the Natural History Museum and my visit to the V&A, I stopped by a bubble tea place and the people working there chatted me up. They encouraged me to visit the V&A, just to see “all the pretty things,” particularly in the jewelry galleries. They were so right.
Gold Colored Fox 