VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM: LONDON’S TIME MACHINE
On a visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, my granddaughter Kelsey takes a lesson in Chinese calligraphy. Programs for children are an integral part of the museum’s offerings.
One of my favorite museums is the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, considered by many as the greatest museum of applied art in the world.
When you are visiting or living in London, you will quickly become aware that Brits like to collect and catalogue memorabilia, their own and other people’s. In fact, the Greeks are still trying to get the Elgin Marbles back from the British Museum. If you enjoy being in touch with bits and pieces of the past from around the world, London’s museums will be an absolute delight.
The brochure for the Victoria and Albert Museum, claims: "The holdings of ceramics, glass, textiles, costumes, silver, ironwork, jewelry, furniture, medieval objects, sculpture, prints, and printmaking, drawings and photographs are among the largest and most comprehensive in the world." On my first visit, I was aware of being surrounded by miles and miles of historical stuff. I thought of how remarkable it was that this is just one of the many large museums in London and that there must be more artifacts in this city than anyplace else.
The major museums of London are free, with donations encouraged. Tours also are free. The docent who leads the tour usually picks a few choice objects and gives background about them.
At many places, renting a magic wand with an earphone allows you to punch in numbers, giving you a lecture about an object.
While walking through the Victoria and Albert's marvelous Chinese collection, I was especially aware that we only know about some places in the past because of the amount of material buried with the dead. The Chinese collection includes fine ceramic horses and plates that were buried with important people. On a visit with my then 9-year-old granddaughter Kelsey, she took a lesson in Chinese calligraphy. Programs for children are an integral part of their offerings.
The Victoria and Albert's holdings of Italian Renaissance items are the largest outside of Italy. Their Islamic collection also is one of the largest in the world.
On each of four visits to the Victorial and Albert I didn’t see the same museum twice. With more than seven miles of galleries, one might visit many times and never see the same objects. Each tour is different because each guide seems to have a different expertise and chooses different parts of the museum to explore.
As an example of how items can give you a feel for the past, on one visit, the guide took the group to a display that had a woman’s jacket from the 16th century next to a painting made about the same time of her wearing it. The jacket is embroidered with fine needlework that includes some gold threads. That means it could not have been cleaned in her day without destroying it.
This theme of not washing clothes or bodies came up on a number of tours. At the Globe Theatre, the guide indicated that not only did the people standing in the pit to watch a play rarely wash themselves or their clothes, but that their urine was used to make dyes stay in place. Because it was too crowded to leave during a two-hour performance, the excess ale they had drunk was deposited in a drain running down the middle of the pit. The main thing a modern person dropped suddenly back in time would be aware of would be the stench.
The Victoria and Albert is located in one of the densest collection of museums in the world. Across the street are the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum plus several smaller museums. The area is sometimes referred to as London’s Albertopolis.
My grandson, Sean, poses at the statue of David at the Victoria and Albert
