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Islam
The V&A's collection of Islamic art includes such highlights as: the
Ardabil Carpet, a 10th century Rock crystal ewer, numerous Qur'ans incorporating
exquisite calligraphy, Iznik pottery,
14th century glasswork, an extensive collection of Middle Eastern and
Persian rugs and carpets, and intricate mosaic
art from Constantinople (Istanbul) and Samarkand.
South and South-East Asia
The V&A's holding of Asian art
comprises some 60,000 objects, including about 10,000 textile items and
6000 paintings. Highlights include: an extensive collection of Hindu,
Buddhist and Jain sculpture, Mughal art including portraits, drawings,
jade wine cups, gold spoons, and exquisite textiles using gold and silver
thread. See: India
Painting & Sculpture.
China, Japan and Korea
This collection has over 70,000 works of art. Chinese highlights include:
The T.T. Tsui Gallery of Chinese
art (from the Tang, Ming and Qing Dynasties) featuring Chinese
lacquerware, ancient ceremonial bronzes, Chinese
pottery, types of porcelain, jade
carving, as well as cloisonné
enamelling, and silk watercolour paintings. Highlights of the museum's
collection of Japanese art
include a 13th-century sculpture of Amida Nyorai, Japanese 19th century
armour, steel sword blades, Suzuki Chokichi's bronze incense burner, lacquerware,
porcelain including Imari, Netsuke, woodblock prints, textiles and kimonos.
Its collection of Korean art
includes silk embroideries and green-glazed ceramics, while the Himalayan
art collection includes early Nepalese bronze sculpture, repoussé
work, Tibetan scroll paintings and ritual objects.
Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia
and Sri Lanka
This collection includes sculptures and precious objects made from gold,
silver, bronze, stone, terracotta and ivory.
British Collections
Featuring art and design by British artists
and craftspeople, these galleries cover three periods: (1) Tudor and Stuart
Britain 1500–1714: covering the Renaissance, Elizabethan, Jacobean,
Restoration and Baroque styles. (2) Georgian Britain 1714–1837: covering
Palladianism, Rococo, Chinoiserie,
Neoclassicism, Regency, and the Gothic Revival. (3) Victorian
Art 1837–1901: covering the later Gothic Revival, Classical and
Renaissance revivals, Aestheticism, Japanese styles, the Arts
and Crafts movement and the Scottish School. Featured artists and
designers include: Grinling Gibbons, Sir James Thornhill, William Kent,
Sir William Chambers, Robert Adam, Josiah Wedgwood, Matthew Boulton, Eleanor
Coade, John Constable, Thomas Chippendale, Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin,
William Morris, William Burges, Charles Robert Ashbee, Christopher Dresser,
James McNeill Whistler and Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
Furniture and Furnishings
The V&A furniture and furnishings collection contains more than 14,000
items from across Europe, including, complete rooms, musical instruments
(notably a 1699 violin by Antonio Stradivari), and clocks, as well as
furniture dating from the Middle Ages to the present - although most of
the furniture is British and dates to between 1700 and 1900. Furniture
designers featured from the 19th and 20th centuries include Ernest Gimson,
Edward William Godwin, Charles Voysey, Adolf Loos and Otto Wagner, while
modernists include Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Marcel Breuer, Charles
and Ray Eames, Giò Ponti, Eileen Gray and Ron Arad.
Ceramics
Numbering over 75,000 objects, drawn from across the world, the V&A
ceramic collection includes: examples of ancient
pottery, Meissen and Sèvres porcelain, a wide display of Delftware,
18th century British porcelain (Royal Doulton, Chelsea and Worcester),
and the finest collection of East Asian (Chinese and Japanese) pottery
and porcelain in the world, an unrivalled display of Italian maiolica,
Spanish lustreware, and Iznik pottery from Turkey. Famous ceramicists
and potters featured, include: Josiah Wedgwood, William Frend De Morgan,
Bernard Palissy and Bernard Leach. See also Ceramic
art.
Jewellery
The V&A jewellery collection has more than 6,000 items, from Ancient
Egypt, Greece and Rome; the Medieval period; the Elizabethan era, and
on to the present day. In addition to exquisite items of early
Christian art, it features works by jewellery designers Cartier, Peter
Carl Fabergé and Lalique, Gerda Flockinger and Wendy Ramshaw.
Glass
The V&A collection of glass art contains over 6,000 items from Africa,
Britain, Europe, America and Asia. As well as ancient artifacts, it encompasses
Venetian and Bohemian glass, including Art
Nouveau glass designs by Louis Comfort Tiffany and Émile Gallé,
Art Deco exemplars by René
Lalique. Designers of stained glass
represented in the collection include, Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-82),
Edward Burne-Jones
(1833-1898) and William Morris. In addition, the collection includes work
by 20th century designers like Harry Clarke, John Piper, Patrick Reyntiens,
Veronica Whall and Brian Clarke.
Metalwork
The V&A metalwork collection consists of some 45,000 items, including
decorative ironwork, bronze, silverware, pewter, brassware and enamels,
as well as arms and armour. About a quarter of the items are made from
silver or gold. The collection includes the oldest known item of English
silver with a dated hallmark (a 1496 silver gilt beaker). See also Celtic
Metalwork.
Sculpture
The V&A sculpture collection, consisting of some 17,000 items dating
from 400 CE to 1914, is the most extensive assembly of post-classical
European sculpture in the world. All types of sculpture are represented,
from tomb and memorial, to portrait, garden statues, fountain sculpture
and architectural decorations. It includes objects made from various types
of marble, stone, wood, ivory, gesso, bronze, lead, ceramics, terracotta,
alabaster and plaster.
The museum's collection of Italian sculpture from the Medieval, Renaissance,
Baroque and Neoclassical periods is the finest outside Italy. It features
works by Luca della Robbia, Giovanni Pisano, Donatello, Antonio Rossellino,
Andrea del Verrocchio, Andrea della Robbia, Michelangelo, Jacopo Sansovino,
Alessandro Algardi, Benvenuto Cellini, Giacomo della Porta, Giambologna,
Bernini and Canova. French sculptors in the collection include François
Girardon, Michel Clodion, Jean-Antoine Houdon, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux,
Auguste Rodin and Jules Dalou. Northern European sculptors featured, include:
the wood-carvers Veit Stoss and Tilman Riemenschneider, Hendrick de Keyser,
Jan van Schayck, Hans Daucher and Peter Flotner, Adriaen de Vries, Sébastien
Slodtz, as well as British-based sculptors like Grinling Gibbons, John
Michael Rysbrack, Louis-Francois Roubiliac, Sir Henry Cheere, Thomas Banks,
Joseph Nollekens, Joseph Wilton, John Flaxman, Sir Francis Chantrey, John
Gibson, Edward Hodges Baily, Alfred Stevens, George Frampton, and Eric
Gill.
Cast Courts
Located in the sculpture wing and consisting of two large, skylighted
rooms two storeys high, this display area houses hundreds of plaster casts
of famous sculptures, friezes and tombs, including: a full-scale replica
of Trajan's Column, replicas
of Italian Renaissance sculpture
and architecture, such as the immortal David sculptures by Michelangelo
and Donatello.
Painting and Drawing
The V&A collection of fine art
painting and drawing consists of some
1,130 British and 650 European oil paintings, 6,800 British watercolours,
pastels and 2,000 miniatures. It includes the seven surviving Raphael
Cartoons (designs for the Vatican's Sistine Chapel tapestries), on long
term loan loan to the museum, from the British
Royal Art Collection of Queen Elizabeth II. Among the many Old Masters
and later famous painters represented in the collection are: Botticelli,
Tintoretto, Adriaen Brouwer, Anton Raphael Mengs, Rembrandt, François
Boucher, John Constable, JMW Turner, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Gustave
Courbet, Eugène Delacroix, Théodore Rousseau, Edgar Degas,
Jean-François Millet, Paul Cezanne, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward
Burne-Jones. Other famous water colourists represented include: William
Gilpin, William Blake, John Sell Cotman, Paul Sandby, William Mulready,
Edward Lear, and Whistler. The V & A also includes a wide range of
miniature portrait
painting by an extensive list of Europe's best
miniaturists such as: Jean Bourdichon, Hans Holbein the Younger, Nicholas
Hilliard, Isaac Oliver, Peter Oliver, Jean Petitot, Alexander Cooper,
Samuel Cooper, Thomas Flatman, George Engleheart, John Smart, Richard
Cosway & William Charles Ross.
In addition, the V&A holds drawings
by: Albrecht Durer, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, Antonio Verrio, John
Russell, Angelica Kauffmann, the sculptor John Flaxman, Hugh Douglas Hamilton,
Thomas Rowlandson, Thomas Girtin, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, David
Wilkie, John Martin, Samuel Palmer, Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, Lord Frederic
Leighton, Sir Samuel Luke Fildes and Aubrey Beardsley. Twentieth century
British artists represented include: Paul Nash, Percy Wyndham Lewis, Eric
Gill, Stanley Spencer, John Piper, Graham Sutherland, Lucian Freud and
David Hockney.
Photography
The V&A collection of photographic images consists of some 500,000
images dating from 1839 up to the present day. It features work by photographers
such as Fox Talbot, Julia
Margaret Cameron, Gustave Le Gray, Frederick Hollyer, Samuel Bourne,
Roger Fenton, Man Ray, Curtis Moffat, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Ilse Bing,
Bill Brandt, Cecil Beaton, Don McCullin, David Bailey, and Helen Chadwick.
Prints and Books
The Victoria and Albert museum is also home to the National Art Library,
one of the world's largest libraries devoted to fine and decorative arts,
which contains more than 750,000 books. Collection highlights include:
the Codex Forster, notebooks by Leonardo da Vinci. The V&A
print collection of 500,000 items, includes posters, greetings cards,
book plates, and prints by such masters as Rembrandt, William Hogarth,
Canaletto, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Matisse and Sir William Nicholson.
Textiles
The V&A collection of textiles - one of the world's biggest - comprises
more than 38,000 items, dating from the 1st century CE to the present.
Mainly western European in origin, it includes works from across the world.
Techniques and crafts represented include: weaving, quilting embroidery,
lace, tapestry and carpets. Highlights
include early silks from the Near East, European tapestries (notably Gobelins
tapestry as well as examples from Brussels, Tournai, Beauvais, Strasbourg
and Florence), and English medieval church embroidery. The collection
also includes woven fabrics, and pattern books designed by the Arts and
Crafts Movement leader, William
Morris.
Other Departments
The V&A also runs the Museum of Childhood
at Bethnal Green, one of the world's largest and oldest collections of
toys and childhood artifacts. Dating from the 16th century to the present
day, it encompasses dolls, teddy bears, toy soldiers, train sets, puppets,
rocking horses, costumes, board games, as well as some of the earliest
jigsaw puzzles ever made.
Education, Research and Conservation
Itself established as one of the finest
art museums in Europe, The V&A
maintains an extensive series of educational programs, along with collaborative
ventures with institutions across Britain. In addition, it runs a major
research and conservation department for the benefit of scholars and the
general upkeep of its exhibits.
Further Information
Victoria and Albert Museum
242 Brompton Road
London SW3 2BB
Website: www.vam.ac.uk.
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