I've been lucky enough to while away many an hour at various museums and art galleries overseas such as the Uffizi in Florence, the Louvre in Paris, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York but I've missed the one which is the easiest of all to get to - the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. On Friday, a couple of friends and I spent a very enjoyable afternoon at the V&A after meeting up for lunch, but we barely scratched the surface! A return visit is planned of course, but for now, here's a look at what we saw on Friday ........
The first thing which strikes you (apart from the beautiful building which goes without saying), is the fabulous Rotunda Chandelier hanging from the dome in the entrance. It was created Chuhily in 2001 and is made from blown glass, mould-blown glass and steel.
OK, so this one has a filter on it from Instagram but it's pretty stunning!
Our first port of call was the East Asia Collection on Level 1, starting with China - plenty of things to see there but I was obviously so busy looking I didn't take any pics! Suffice it to say, lots of artifacts, wonderful lacquered furniture and textiles. Anyway, from there we went into Japan and the first thing that caught my eye was this stunning art sculpture by Japanese artist Ikuta Niyoko. She uses thin sheets of plate glass and ultraviolet-reactive adhesive, By positioning each sheet of glass a few degrees off its neighbour, she builds up fluidly rhythmic forms.
Looks like you can see through it doesn't it, but if you look at the second photo you can see that actually it's solid!
Of course, in this section there were some wonderful Kimonos, a selection of which are shown below.....
Beautiful embroidery - must have been very heavy to wear!
This one in particular made me wonder how many soft furnishing fabrics and wallpapers have been inspired by the design and shibori technique used ......
Quite amazing to think that this was made between 1800 and 1840.
The beni dye from safflowers is still vibrant.
Here's one which bears some resemblance to the design of the kimono above .......
Japonica (Kravet)
Here's another shibori style fabric - Schumacher Andromeda (Turnell & Gigon). Available in different colourways.
I could quite easily digress here because Schumacher are great for geometric patterns (amongst other things of course!)
No exhibition of Japanese artefacts would be complete without a few Samuri Swords and suits of armour. The costume below is in the haramaki style and is quite beautiful, considering its purpose.
The last thing to catch my eye in this section was a folding war fan - made from iron with silver and gold inlay (mica paper painted in colours). This dates from about 1700!
On our way to another part of the museum (tapestries), we almost walked straight past this beautiful trunk. It was quite difficult to get a good photo because of the reflection but hopefully you can just about make out the detail.
We had such a surprise when we walked into this area and saw this staircase from a large town house in Brittany. It probably dates from between 1522 to 1530 and gave access to rooms on three floors at the front and rear.
Just to the left of the staircase were some casts of heads from Salisbury Cathedral. The originals are still there and these were made during the restoration of 1885-6. The information given states that each face is unique and that it is possible that the original sculptures were based on real people known to the artists who carved them.
Further round this section was this amazing facade from Sir Paul Pindar's House which dates to about 1600. It's of oak construction and traces of paint can just be seen, though we struggled to see them.
I love doors, particularly quirky ones and here are two for the price of one! This door comes from a timber-framed house in Ipswich and dates from about 1500 - 30.
Still on our way to see the tapestries, we got sidetracked by some fabulous ironwork ......
This would look great in the garden!
This one is very clever - as my friend noticed, it's made from one continuous piece of wrought mild steel and apparently was intended by the artist as a free-standing room divider.
These elevator grilles (below) screened the lift shafts in the Chicago Stock Exchange Building.
Still on the way to see the tapestries, we found ourselves on a walkway spanning the Cast Room. Although they're casts (and put together like a big jigsaw puzzle), the scale of this column is almost too big to take in! The column on the left is the top half of the column sitting on the (huge!) plinth on the right. We didn't go down into the Cast Room and actually felt we could see more from being up high.
The other large exhibit which you can't help but notice is this one - it's a cast of the doors to the Baptistry of S. Giovanni in Florence (also known as the Porta del Paradiso or Gates of Paradise. The actual doors were designed and made between 1425-1452 and were considered so beautiful that they were placed opposite the entrance to the Cathedral, replacing the doors which were originally designed for that position (source - Victoria and Albert Museum).
On the right is a picture of the actual doors I took when we were in Florence last year.
Sadly, the Baptistry was closed for renovation when we were there so this was as close as we got. Maybe we will just have to go back!
Sadly, the Baptistry was closed for renovation when we were there so this was as close as we got. Maybe we will just have to go back!
Along the walkway there were displays cases and we spotted this lovely little folding compass and dial in one of them - it dates from 1600-1700.
We then popped into the Jewellery Exhibition but unfortunately there is no photography allowed in that section and we only had about 10 minutes in there as that level was closing for the day - needless to say, we never did make it to see the tapestries and have vowed to make a return visit!
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