The Victoria and Albert Museum

10.00 - 17.45 daily
10.00 - 22.00 Friday (reduced gallery openings after 18.00)

The National Art Library

10.00 - 17.30 Tuesday to Saturday, 10.00 - 18.30 Friday.

I've already signed up for my Reader Card to view Rainy days at Brig O'Turk : the Highland sketchbooks of John Everett Millais - a book I've been dying to see for nearly 20 years! 

The Prints & Drawings Study Room

By appointment only. Appointments are available at 10.15 and 14.15 Tuesday to Friday.

In 1851 the British Empire was at its peak, the Industrial Revolution in England was going full steam and the Great Exhibition was taking place in the Crystal Palace. Just the name is enough to make me sigh that I'm nearly 100 years too late to see it in person (it was destroyed in a fire in the 1930s). The building was constructed in 10 months out of cast iron and 300,000 of the largest glass sheets ever constructed. 

Aeronautic view of The Palace of Industry For All Nations, from Kensington Palace by Charles Burton, England, 1851 - 1852. 

 

 The State Opening of The Great Exhibition in 1851. Colour lithograph, England

Prince Albert was a co-financier and co-organizer for this Great Exhibition that aimed to declare Britain's triumphs in design, technology, and engineering. Over 100,000 objects were displayed from 7,000 British Exhibitors and 7,000 from the rest of the world. 

 

Nestled within Hyde Park the Crystal Palace enclosed full grown trees. 

John Absolon (1815-95) 'View in the East Nave (The Amazon, by Kiss)' 1851

It must have been amazing. The following year the Victoria and Albert Museum was established with the founding principle to make works of art available to all, to educate working people and to inspire British designers and manufacturers. In 1899 the cornerstone for the building was laid by Queen Victoria. Today it is the world's leading museum of art and design with millions of objects from 2,000 years of history.

While we are visiting this will be the exhibition on display: 

Botticelli Reimagined

5 March 2016 - 3 July 2016

£16.50 Full, including donation* 

EXHIBITION: This innovative exhibition explores the variety of ways artists and designers from the Pre-Raphaelites to the present have responded to the artistic legacy of Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510), assembling 150 works from around the world. Botticelli is now celebrated as one of the greatest artists of all time, but was largely forgotten after his death until his work was progressively rediscovered in the 19th century.

The V&A Café
Garden Café

10.00 -17.15 daily
10.00-21.30 Fridays

You know, because looking at all that beauty might make us hungry...

We  might also search our the originals of our wedding bands which were cast from posy rings in the V&A's collection.