Beard Family Trips & Vacations

London, England

October 26, 2008 - Victoria & Albert Museum

 

Pictures from the Victoria & Albert Museum:

The Victoria & Albert museum is currently housed in a building first opened for it in 1909 following official support by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.  It is one of the largest collections of decorative art in existence.  The building has over 150 rooms and 12 miles of corridors for people to explore.  The museum is free for admission, but they do request a donation of £3 to help support the museum.  You must go through a security checkpoint to enter this museum.

 

     

We first entered the museum from a street side entrance and entered into this corridor filled with statues.

 

  

Off to the side was a store you have to walk through to get to the main entrance area.  We did this to follow Rick Steves' tour from his London book.

 

     

      

The main entrance hall had a brightly colored information desk.  From close to the front entrance looking back into the hall, you get to see the Dale Chihuly Chandelier, a famous American glass artist.  On the balcony behind it is the Hereford Screen from the Hereford Cathedral.  It was made in 1862, is 35 feet by 35 feet, and weighs 8 tons.  It was created by George Gilbert Scott, the man responsible for building or restoring half of the famous structures in London.

Turns out that part of the museum was closed for restoration, so we went up to see the British Galleries first.  

  

Bust of Queen Victoria.

 

     

Early British art.

 

  

Works of Geoffrey Chaucer in 1896.

 

     

More art.

 

  

Model of the Wellington Monument located at St. Paul's Cathedral from 1859.

 

     

More art.

 

Cabinet first built to be displayed in Paris.

 

        

      

Various room furnishings.

 

           

Exhibit for Charles Dickens.  Portrait of him from 1859 and the manuscript for Oliver Twist from 1838. 

 

        

 Furniture and stained glass depicting the honeymoon of King Rene of France.  These were built from 1860-1863.

 

     

Dishware and a chandelier.

 

     

  

Hallway filled with ornamental iron work.  We didn't take the time to go through this part of the museum.

 

  

Decorative bed.

 

     

Model of the state coach of 1760.

 

More glassware.

 

     

     

  

This is a reinstallation and restoration of a music room from the Norfolk House as it was seen in 1756.  The Norfolk House is located in St. James's Square in London.  Notice all of the gold trim and gild.

 

  

Recreation of the parlour room from 11 Henrietta Street in London dated late 1730's.

 

  

Silver display.

 

     

Another bed and various artifacts. 

 

 

     

A flower pyramid from 1695. 

 

     

     

A wood carving panel from 1580 featuring Apollo and a claviorgan from 1579.

 

        

The Great Bed of Ware built in 1590.   It was built as a tourist attraction for an English Inn.  It is big enough to sleep six people comfortably.

 

 

More art.

We then went over to the East Wing. 

  

          

This is a copy of the Roman Emperor Trajan's column from 100 A.D. depicting his exploits and is 140 feet tall when put together.  It was cut in half to fit in the building.

 

     

     

  

Various monuments to mainly church officials.

 

        

Tomb effigies of Henry II and his family. 

 

  

  

The Japanese room.

 

  

     

Various Chinese artifacts.

 

  

This is a Chinese Imperial throne from 1775-1780 and was primarily used for reviewing troops outside of Peking in a park.

  

     

These are various artifacts from Islam.

 

     

The Ardabil Carpet is one of the largest and finest Islamic carpets in existence.  To help protect is, it is surrounded by glass and only has light shined on it for 10 minutes every 30 minutes.

 

     

More Islamic art. 

  

  

The Siva Nataraja from the 12th century - the Hindu god Shiva.

 

     

Now in the room showing artifacts from India.  The display case in the middle shows possessions of Emperor Shah Jahan from the mid 1600's.  The picture on the right is a wine cup made out of white nephrite jade in 1657.  Jahan was one of the most powerful men at that time. 

The Sultan of Mysore, Tipu, who called himself the Tiger of Mysore.

 

  

This was one of Sultan Tipu's toys created to show his hatred of the British for taking over India.  It is called Tippoo's Tiger and is a life-sized automated toy of a tiger devouring a European.  It is ran by a hand crank.  It was confiscated by the East India Company after defeating and killing the Sultan in 1799. 

 

More possessions of the Sultan.

 

The next room was a collection of women's dresses. 

     

  

 

 

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Matthew Beard

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This site was last updated 12/26/08