Sidney's Place: THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM: London's Finest (8)

[This is the eighth in a series of articles describing some of the most interesting and attractive places in London]

The Victoria and Albert Museum (commonly known as “The V&A”) is the flagship of the dazzling concentration of museums in South Kensington. It is an unmissable sight in London, a vast building packed full of interest, with something to stimulate and enchant every visitor.

V&A Frontage

V&A Garden

Officially opened by Queen Victoria in 1857, the institution was known as The South Kensington Museum. It was developed in the usual British higgledy-piggledy way on the original Brompton Park House site. Two Royal Engineers officers, Fowke and later Scott were responsible for the Italian Renaissance external style and the lavish use of terra cotta, brick and mosaic. Internally a succession of architects designed galleries in a multitude of styles on a grand scale, including stained glass and a splendid ceramic staircase. Later renovators toned down the Victoriana, but now much is being restored. In 1899 Queen Victoria’s last public engagement was laying the foundation stone of the new West wing and the impressively imposing, if eclectic, Brompton Road frontage was built then too by the architect Aston Webb, completing in 1907. The museum changed its name in 1899 to The Victoria and Albert and both eminences are honoured with statues over the front entrance; Victoria died in 1901 and Albert was long dead in 1861.

Majolica Dish from Urbino c 1456

The Museum is dedicated to what used to be called “the Applied Arts” and are now known as Decorative Arts and Design – broadly speaking aesthetically pleasing everyday objects. The V&A is thus contrasted with the High Art of the National Gallery and the Scholarship of The British Museum. Unlike earlier museums the V&A was always consciously educational, seeking paternalistically to imbue the labouring classes with a sense of the beautiful. This populist chord remains in recent Exhibitions on Fashion and Posters and a tendency to praise the Refreshment Rooms (admittedly decorated by William Morris, Burne-Jones and Poynter among others) almost over the splendours of the permanent Collections.

These Collections and their departments are indeed a treasure-house and two became so diffuse that separate institutions were created to house them – the much-visited Science Museum in 1893 and the respected Royal College of Art in 1949. Many visitors will have their favourite parts. Personally I like to gaze at the enormous Great Bed of Ware, 3 metres wide and all oak carving from 1580, or Tipu Sahib’s Tiger, the bellows-activated automaton mauling an East India Company soldier in the 18^th century.

The Great Bed of Ware

Tipu's Tiger

These are perhaps frivolous curiosities but I also enjoy the Cast Courts where metal and plaster cast copies of some great works of art are kept. Art students in the past did not need to make expensive and dangerous journeys to study say, Trajan’s Column among many others. I much admire The Portal to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.

Portal from Santiago de Compostela

A visit to the V & A would not be complete without viewing the magnificently hung 7 Raphael Cartoons (of a set of 10) of scenes from the Acts of St Peter and St Paul, guiding weavers producing tapestries for the Vatican in 1515.

Raphael Cartoon of The Draught of Fishes

It is almost invidious among such richness to single out specific works of art, but I set out below other highlights. The V&A’s Asian and particularly Oriental Collection is of the highest quality, but I know little about this subject and cannot be anything but a superficial guide. I can only recommend visitors to London dip into the V&A – trying to see everything in one visit (there are 140 galleries) will bring on severe cultural indigestion. The V&A is emulated throughout the world and I am proud that its values of Beauty and Truth are thus disseminated. Finally, admission is free!