We were off to an early start again today, straight after breakfast we went to Paddington underground to make our way to the Victoria & Albert Museum. The intention was to spend a couple of hours there and then to go on to the Natural History Museum which is just down the road. That turned out to be a silly idea, why you ask? Well because the V&A is huge and the collection is massive, you can just about visit Europe in this one Museum.
An early start
even the birds were just waking up!
I had a camera in my hand!!!!!!
The Victoria & Albert Museum
The impressive front entry to the V&A In the Cast Rooms there are plaster casts of artworks from all over the world. Michaelangelo’s David and Moses are both here, there are two columns in the cast rooms that made Michael look like an ant when he stood beside them. When we walked into the room that houses them we were both wide eyed and a bit lost for words other than ‘wow’ and ‘oh my god’ which we just kept repeating with every new encounter. Once again photography is allowed in here in most areas, the exceptions are, exhibitions that incur a cost or items on loan, otherwise it is open slather, though I tried to refrain from using my flash and did not use it in the textiles area.
Michaelangelo's Moses, this gallery was being renovated.
Michaelangelo's David and Mrs Ambler's Michael!
Michael standing at the base of this plaster cast column to show the scale, we could not believe our eyes when we first saw it.
This gold painted door is also a plaster cast!
Pilaster consoles from the 1400's
Coat of Arms There is no entry cost except for the afore mentioned exhibitions. We had a plan to look at certain things and while we did follow the plan to a certain extent it was so easy to be tempted off course. There are interactive exhibits and lots of things that you can access like in the textile gallery there are laces stored in drawers that you are invited to open to look at, there are also vertical ‘files’ that you can pull out and they are fabric samples in glassed frames from different cultures and different centuries.
detail of embroidered shawl, Chinese exhibit
detail of Chinese shawl
Coat, Chinese Exhibit
gold embroidery in one of the slide out vertical displays
Lace in one of the drawers the lighting in this gallery was dim to protect the fabrics The stained glass gallery also has hands on exhibits, there is a video showing how stained glass is made in pretty much the same way as it has been down the centuries, I guess the main difference is that now we know that lead is toxic if not handled properly. The video shows the reproduction of a piece that is on display and invites you to touch it and feel the textures built up by the application of different paints that are then kiln fired, it was fascinating.
This is the reproduction that visitors are invited to touch and feel the textures of the stippled areas
The original piece 
This is a museum where art and design students have and still do come to practise their drawing and observation skills and it seems normal to see artists with a sketch pad propped on one arm, sketching away paying no heed to the crowds around them. There are examples of student drawings from some well-known artists, among them are John Constable and Beatrix Potter.
John Constable, life drawing
Beatrix Potter still life
Beatrix Potter Still life, sea shells
Beatrix Potter drawing The gallery itself is a sight to behold, it is richly decorated both inside and outside and every now and then the exhibits would momentarily take a back seat to the view from a window or a highly decorated ceiling or pillar.
Mosaic floors
and stairs decorate the Museum
The view from the second floor 
the views from the windows are as impressive as the displays
outside building details
this little bloke was on the outside wall, taken through the window
the interior decorations are beautiful displays in their own right
The Twentieth Century Gallery had some iconic displays and covered many facets of design. I was most interested in the fashion, textiles and furniture, the setting for this display is part of the library I think as there were glassed book shelves with tomes on collections and art history and areas relating to design that ran over two levels of the room.
20th Century cabinet, 1951
20th century design gallery 1990's
20th Century, 1960's and 70's
20th Century furnishing fabric, 1954
furnishing fabric 1983
Irregular chest of drawers, 1970
Chest of drawers 1991
This is the area where the 20th Century display is housed
Inside the reading room of the library, it was not open on the day we visited, this photo was taken through the glass doors
Two views of 'table chest' 1995
The iconic1957 'stacking chair' and on the wall behind it, the famous photograph of Christine Keeler perched on a model of the chair in the 1960's
Chair "Honey Pop" 2001 made of paper
the designer sat in the chair when it was first made to leave the imprint of his bottom! The chair is paper glued together in the way honeycomb is constructed The Fashion Gallery was being refurbished and there was only a small display on show, mostly shoes through the ages and a couple of gowns.
Shoes from the collection......
This dress designed in 1931 by Madeleine Vionet, she was famous for the bias cut of fabric, which gave a beautiful drape to her garments, she usually used plain fabric to focus on the drape, so this example of a print fabric is quite unusual
There really is so much to see there, you need to take a day then return to concentrate on the things you really want to spend a bit of time looking at!! We had a delicious lunch at the gallery and sat in the William Morris Room, which of course was decorated in the Art and Craft style for which Morris is famous. It was rather a dark room so I had to use the flash which tended to suck some of the colour out and make it look a lot lighter than it actually is.
The cafe, decorated with William Morris wallpaper and prints, a delightful place to enjoy a meal.
the ceiling of the cafe, also highly decorated in the Morris style We certainly didn’t have either time or energy to go on to another museum by the time we had finished at the Victoria & Albert. We decided to eat in tonight and stopped at a very nice little French bakery for baguettes, cakes and fruit juice that we could eat at our leisure as we had eaten a hearty lunch of roast meat and very welcome vegies at lunch time. The V&A is a place that I would like to be able to visit regularly, it has an extensive program for both children and adults and actively supports and encourages the field of art and design across all genres.
