The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects. Named after Prince Albert and Queen Victoria, it was founded in 1852, and has since grown to cover 12.5 acres, with 145 galleries. Its collection spans 5000 years of art, from ancient times to the present day, in virtually every medium, covering the cultures of Europe, North America, Asia and North Africa.

The ceramics, glass, textiles, costumes, silver, ironwork, jewellery, furniture, sculpture, drawings and photograph collections are among the largest and most comprehensive in the world. The Victoria and Albert Museum possesses the world's largest collection of post-classical sculpture, the Italian Renaissance items are the largest collection outside Italy, while the Islamic collection, alongside the Musée du Louvre and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is amongst the largest in the world.

Alongside other neighbouring institutions, including the Natural History Museum and Science Museum, The V&A is located in what was termed London's "Albertopolis", an area of immense cultural, scientific and educational importance.

Paintings and drawings

The collection includes about 1130 British and 650 European oil paintings; 6800 British watercolours, pastels and 2000 miniatures, for which the museum holds the national collection. Also on loan to the museum, from Her Majesty, are the Raphael Cartoons: the seven surviving (there were ten) full scale designs for tapestries in the Sistine Chapel, of the lives of Peter and Paul from the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. One of the largest objects in the collection is the Spanish tempera on wood, 670 x 486 cm, retable of St George, c1400, consisting of many scenes and painted by Andrés Marzal De Sax in Valencia.

Nineteenth century British artists are well represented. John Constable and J.M.W. Turner have oil paintings, water colours and drawings within the collection. One of the most unusual objects on display is Thomas Gainsborough's experimental showbox with its back-lit landscapes. They were painted on glass, which could be changed like slides.

Sculpture

The Sculpture collection at the V&A is the most comprehensive post-classical European in the world, covering the period from 400 AD to 1914.
The collection of Italian, Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassical sculpture (both original and in cast form) is unequalled, outside Italy. It includes Canova's The Three Graces, which the museum jointly owns with National Galleries of Scotland.

The Victoria and Albert Museum has the atmosphere of an art gallery, rather quieter than its neighbours, with a sketching student around every corner. The interior is purposefully dark to protect the specimens it contains, but never seems dingy or oppressive. You're free to take pictures (as you are in most other museums in the capital), with a few exceptions (to protect their tremendous fragility). Equally as impressive as the exhibits, is the building itself and its highly varied and stunning interiors. Staff are polite, helpful and even manage to tell-you-off in a pleasant way (I took a picture of something, I shouldn't have).

As mentioned, it's in a cultural hotspot: with the Natural History Museum and Science Museum, over the road. The Royal College of Music and Imperial College, next door to those institutions and the Royal Albert Hall and Kensington Gardens at the end of Exhibition Road.

 

V&A South Kensington, Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL

Call:     +44 (0)20 7942 2000

 

10.00 to 17.45 daily
10.00 to 22.00 Fridays (selected galleries remain open after 18.00 )
Closing commences 10 minutes before time stated

Closed 24, 25 and 26 December

South Kensington or Knightsbridge Tube

 

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