The collecting areas of the museum are not easy to summarize, having evolved partly through attempts to avoid too much overlap with other national museums in London. Generally, the classical world of the West and the
Ancient Near East is left to the British Museum, and Western paintings to the
National Gallery, though there are all sorts of exceptionsfor example, painted
portrait miniatures, where the Victoria and Albert has the main national collection. The V&A's holdings are organised into four main curatorial departments: Decorative Art and Sculpture; Performance, Furniture, Textiles and Fashion; Art, Architecture, Photography and Design; and Asia. The following table lists each of the collections on display and the total number of objects within each collection across the museum's different sites. The South Kensington site has 145 galleries, but given the vast extent of the collections, only a small percentage is ever on display. Many acquisitions have been made possible only with the assistance of the
National Art Collections Fund.
General views Architecture In 2004, the V&A alongside Royal Institute of British Architects opened the first permanent gallery in the UK covering the history of architecture with displays using models, photographs, elements from buildings and original drawings. With the opening of the new gallery, the RIBA Drawings and Archives Collection has been transferred to the museum, joining the already extensive collection held by the V&A. With over 600,000 drawings, over 750,000 papers and paraphernalia, and over 700,000 photographs from around the world, together they form the world's most comprehensive architectural resource. Not only are all the major British architects of the last four hundred years represented, but many European (especially Italian) and American architects' drawings are held in the collection. The RIBA's holdings of over 330 drawings by
Andrea Palladio are the largest in the world; other Europeans well represented are Jacques Gentilhatre and
Antonio Visentini. British architects whose drawings, and in some cases models of their buildings, in the collection, include:
Inigo Jones, Sir
Christopher Wren, Sir
John Vanbrugh,
Nicholas Hawksmoor,
William Kent,
James Gibbs,
Robert Adam, Sir
William Chambers,
James Wyatt,
Henry Holland,
John Nash, Sir
John Soane, Sir
Charles Barry,
Charles Robert Cockerell,
Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, Sir
George Gilbert Scott,
John Loughborough Pearson,
George Edmund Street,
Richard Norman Shaw, Alfred Waterhouse, Sir
Edwin Lutyens,
Charles Rennie Mackintosh,
Charles Holden,
Frank Hoar, Lord
Richard Rogers, Lord
Norman Foster, Sir
Nicholas Grimshaw,
Zaha Hadid and
Alick Horsnell. As well as
period rooms, the collection includes parts of buildings, for example, the two top stories of the facade of
Sir Paul Pindar's house dated from
Bishopsgate with elaborately carved woodwork and leaded windows, a rare survivor of the
Great Fire of London, there is a brick portal from a London house of the
English Restoration period and a fireplace from the gallery of Northumberland house. European examples include a dormer window dated 1523–1535 from the chateau of Montal. There are several examples from Italian Renaissance buildings including, portals, fireplaces, balconies and a stone buffet that used to have a built-in fountain. The main architecture gallery has a series of pillars from various buildings and different periods, for example, a column from the
Alhambra. Examples covering Asia are in those galleries concerned with those countries, as well as models and photographs in the main architecture gallery. In June 2022, the RIBA announced it would be terminating its 20-year partnership with the V&A in 2027, "by mutual agreement", ending the permanent architecture gallery at the museum. Artefacts will be transferred back to the RIBA's existing collections, with some rehoused at the institute's headquarters at 66 Portland Place building, set to become a new House of Architecture following a £20 million refurbishment.
Asia The V&A's Asia collection numbers more than 160,000 objects, one of the largest in existence. It has one of the world's most comprehensive and important collections of Chinese art whilst the collection of South Asian Art is the most important in the West. The museum's coverage includes pieces from South and South East Asia, Himalayan kingdoms, China, the Far East and the Islamic world.
Islamic art The museum holds over 19,000 objects from the Islamic world, ranging from the early Islamic period (the 7th century) to the early 20th century. The Jameel Gallery of Islamic Art, opened in 2006, houses a representative display of 400 objects with the highlight being the
Ardabil Carpet, the centrepiece of the gallery. The displays in this gallery cover objects from Spain, North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and Afghanistan. A masterpiece of
Islamic art is a 10th-century
rock crystal ewer. Many examples of
Qur'āns with exquisite calligraphy dating from various periods are on display. A 15th-century
minbar from a Cairo mosque with ivory forming complex geometrical patterns inlaid in wood is one of the larger objects on display. Extensive examples of ceramics especially
Iznik pottery, glasswork including 14th-century lamps from mosques and metalwork are on display. The collection of Middle Eastern carpets and
Persian rugs is amongst the finest in the world, many were part of the Salting Bequest of 1909. Examples of tile work from various buildings including a fireplace dated 1731 from Istanbul made of intricately decorated blue and white tiles and turquoise tiles from the exterior of buildings from
Samarkand are also displayed.
South Asia The museum's collections of South and South-East Asian art are the most comprehensive and important in the West comprising nearly 60,000 objects, including about 10,000 textiles and 6,000 paintings, the range of the collection is immense. The
Jawaharlal Nehru gallery of
Indian art, opened in 1991, contains art from about 500 BC to the 19th century. There is an extensive collection of sculptures, mainly of a religious nature,
Hindu,
Buddhist and
Jain. The gallery is richly endowed with the art of the
Mughal Empire and the
Maratha Empire, including fine portraits of the emperors and other paintings and drawings, jade wine cups and gold spoons inset with emeralds, diamonds and rubies, also from this period are parts of buildings such as a
jaali and pillars. India was a large producer of textiles, from dyed cotton
chintz,
muslin to rich embroidery work using gold and silver thread, coloured sequins and beads is displayed, as are carpets from
Agra and
Lahore. Examples of clothing are also displayed. In 1879–80, the collections of the defunct
East India Company's
India Museum were transferred to the V&A and the British Museum. Items in the collection include
Tipu's Tiger, an 18th-century automaton created for
Tipu Sultan, the ruler of the
Kingdom of Mysore. The
Wine cup of Shah Jahan, the personal wine cup of a Mughal Emperor is also on display.
East Asia The Far Eastern collections include more than 70,000 works of art from the countries of East Asia: China, Japan and Korea. Though the majority of artworks on display date from the
Ming and
Qing dynasties, there are objects dating from the
Tang dynasty and earlier periods, among them a metre-high bronze head of the
Buddha dated to about 750 AD, and one of the oldest works, a 2000-year-old jade horse head from a burial. Other sculptures include life-size tomb guardians. Examples of Chinese decorative arts on display include
Chinese lacquer, silk,
Chinese porcelain, jade and
cloisonné enamel. Two large ancestor portraits of a husband and wife painted in watercolour on silk date from the 18th century. There is a unique
Chinese lacquerware table, made in the imperial workshops during the reign of the
Xuande Emperor in the Ming dynasty. Examples of clothing are also displayed. One of the largest objects is a bed from the mid-17th century. The work of contemporary Chinese designers is also displayed. The
Toshiba gallery of
Japanese art opened in December 1986. The majority of exhibits date from 1550 to 1900, but one of the oldest pieces displayed is the 13th-century sculpture of Amida Nyorai. Examples of classic Japanese armour from the mid-19th century, steel sword blades (
Katana),
Inrō, lacquerware including the Mazarin Chest dated c1640 is one of the finest surviving pieces from
Kyoto, porcelain including
Imari,
Netsuke,
woodblock prints including the work of
Andō Hiroshige, graphic works include printed books, as well as a few paintings, scrolls and screens, textiles and dress including
kimono are some of the objects on display. One of the finest objects displayed is Suzuki Chokichi's bronze incense burner (
koro) dated 1875, standing at over 2.25 metres high and 1.25 metres in diameter it is also one of the largest examples made. The museum also holds some cloisonné pieces from the Japanese art production company,
Ando Cloisonné. The smaller galleries cover Korea, the
Himalayas and South East Asia. Korean displays include green-glazed ceramics, silk embroideries from officials' robes and gleaming boxes inlaid with mother-of-pearl made between 500 AD and 2000. Himalayan works include important early Nepalese bronze sculptures,
repoussé work and embroidery. Tibetan art from the 14th to the 19th century is represented by 14th- and 15th-century religious images in wood and bronze, scroll paintings and ritual objects. Art from Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka in gold, silver, bronze, stone, terracotta and ivory represents these rich and complex cultures, the displays span the 6th to 19th centuries. Refined Hindu and Buddhist sculptures reflect the influence of India; items on the show include betel-nut cutters, ivory combs and bronze
palanquin hooks.
Selected works from the Asia collection Books The South Kensington building houses the
National Art Library, a public library containing over 750,000 books, photographs, drawings, paintings and prints. It is one of the world's largest libraries dedicated to the study of fine and decorative arts. The library covers all areas and periods of the museum's collections with special collections covering
illuminated manuscripts, rare books and artists' letters and archives. The library consists of three large public rooms, with around a hundred individual study desks. These are the West Room, Centre Room and Reading Room. The centre room contains 'special collection material'. One of the great treasures in the library is the
Codex Forster, one of
Leonardo da Vinci's note books. The Codex consists of three parchment-bound manuscripts, Forster I, Forster II, and Forster III, quite small in size, dated between 1490 and 1505. Their contents include a large collection of sketches and references to the equestrian sculpture commissioned by the Duke of Milan
Ludovico Sforza to commemorate his father
Francesco Sforza. These were bequeathed with over 18,000 books to the museum in 1876 by
John Forster. The Reverend
Alexander Dyce was another benefactor of the library, leaving over 14,000 books to the museum in 1869. Amongst the books he collected are early editions in Greek and Latin of the poets and playwrights
Aeschylus,
Aristotle,
Homer,
Livy,
Ovid,
Pindar,
Sophocles and
Virgil. More recent authors include
Giovanni Boccaccio,
Dante,
Racine,
Rabelais and
Molière. Illuminated manuscripts in the library dating from the 12th to 16th centuries include: a leaf from the
Eadwine Psalter,
Canterbury; Pocket
Book of Hours,
Reims;
Missal from the Royal
Basilica of Saint Denis, Paris; the
Simon Marmion Book of Hours,
Bruges; 1524 Charter illuminated by
Lucas Horenbout, London; the Armagnac manuscript of the trial and rehabilitation of
Joan of Arc,
Rouen. The Victorian period is represented by writers as diverse as
Charles Dickens, including the manuscripts of most of his novels;
Beatrix Potter, with the greatest collection of her original manuscripts in the world and
William Morris. The National Art Library also includes a collection of comics and comic art. This collection include the
Krazy Kat Arkive, comprising 4,200 comics, and the Rakoff Collection, comprising 17,000 pieces collected by the writer and editor, Ian Rakoff. The National Art Library collection catalogue used to be kept in different formats, including printed exhibit catalogues and card catalogues. A computer cataloguing system, called MODES, was used from the 1980s to the 1990s, but was not available to library users. All of the archival material has an Encoded Archival Description (EAD). The Victoria and Albert Museum has a computer system but most of the items in the collection, unless those were newly accessioned into the collection, probably do not show up in the computer system. There is a feature on the Victoria and Albert Museum website called "Search the Collections," but not everything is listed there. The Victoria and Albert Museum's Word and Image Department began a large scale digitisation project in 2007. That project was entitled the Factory Project to reference
Andy Warhol and to create a factory to completely digitise the collection. The first step of the project was to take digital photographs of each item. The department had a collection of old photos but they were in black and white and in variant conditions, so new photos were shot. Those new photographs will be accessible to researchers to the Victoria and Albert Museum web-site. 15,000 images were taken during the first year of the project, including of drawings, watercolors, computer-generated art, photographs, posters and woodcuts. The next step of the project is to catalogue everything and audit the collection. All of those items which were photographed and catalogued, must be audited to make sure everything listed as being in the collection was physically found during the creation of the project. In addition items needing conservation are identified and treated.
British galleries These fifteen galleries—which opened in November 2001—contain around 4,000 objects. The displays in these galleries are based around three major themes: "Style", "Who Led Taste" and "What Was New". The period covered is 1500 to 1900, with the galleries divided into three major subdivisions: •
Tudor and
Stuart Britain, 1500–1714, covering the Renaissance,
Elizabethan,
Jacobean,
Restoration and
Baroque styles •
Georgian Britain, 1714–1837, covering
Palladianism,
Rococo,
Chinoiserie,
Neoclassicism, the
Regency, the influence of Chinese, Indian and Egyptian styles, and the early
Gothic Revival •
Victorian Britain, 1837–1901, covering the later phases of the Gothic Revival, French influences, Classical and Renaissance revivals,
Aestheticism, Japanese style, the continuing influence of China, India, and the Islamic world, the
Arts and Crafts movement and the Scottish School. Also on display are works produced by European artists that was purchased or commissioned by British patrons, as well as imports from Asia, including porcelain, cloth and wallpaper. Designers and artists whose work is on display in the galleries include
Gian Lorenzo Bernini,
Grinling Gibbons,
Daniel Marot,
Louis Laguerre,
Antonio Verrio, Sir
James Thornhill, William Kent, Robert Adam, Josiah Wedgwood, Matthew Boulton, Canova,
Thomas Chippendale, Pugin, William Morris. Patrons who have influenced taste are also represented by works of art from their collections, these include:
Horace Walpole (a major influence on the Gothic Revival),
William Thomas Beckford and
Thomas Hope. The galleries showcase a number of complete and partial reconstructions of period rooms, from demolished buildings, including: • The parlour from 2 Henrietta Street, London, dated 1727–1728, designed by
James Gibbs • The
Norfolk House Music Room, St James Square, London, dated 1756, designed by
Matthew Brettingham and
Giovanni Battista Borra • A section of a wall from the Glass Drawing-Room of
Northumberland House, dated 1773–1775, designed by
Robert Adam Some of the more notable works displayed in the galleries include: • Pietro Torrigiani's coloured terracotta bust of
Henry VII, dated 1509–1511 •
Henry VIII's writing desk, dated 1525, made from walnut and oak, lined with leather and painted and gilded with the king's coat of arms • A
spinet dated 1570–1580, made for
Elizabeth I • The
Great Bed of Ware, dated 1590–1600, a large, elaborately carved four-poster bed with
marquetry headboard •
Gianlorenzo Bernini's
bust of Thomas Baker, from the 1630s • 17th-century tapestries from the Sheldon and
Mortlake Tapestry Works • The wood relief of The Stoning of St Stephen, dated , by Grinling Gibbons • The Macclesfield Wine Set, dated 1719–1720, made by Anthony Nelme, the only complete set known to survive. • The
life-size sculpture of George Frederick Handel, dated 1738, by
Louis-François Roubiliac • Furniture by Thomas Chippendale and
Robert Adam •
The sculpture of Bashaw, dated 1831–1834, by Matthew Cotes Wyatt • Aesthetic and Arts & Crafts furniture by
Edward William Godwin and Charles Rennie Mackintosh; and carpets and interior textiles by
William Morris. The galleries also link design to wider trends in British culture. For instance, design in the Tudor period was influenced by the spread of printed books and the work of European artists and craftsmen employed in Britain. In the Stuart period, increasing trade, especially with Asia, enabled wider access to luxuries like carpets, lacquered furniture, silks and porcelain. In the Georgian age there was an increasing emphasis on entertainment and leisure. For example, the increase in tea drinking led to the production of tea paraphernalia such as china and caddies. European styles are seen on the
Grand Tour also influenced taste. As the
Industrial Revolution took hold, the growth of mass production produced entrepreneurs such as
Josiah Wedgwood,
Matthew Boulton and
Eleanor Coade. In the Victorian era new technology and machinery had a significant effect on manufacturing, and for the first time since the reformation, the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches had a major effect on art and design such as the Gothic Revival. There is a large display on the Great Exhibition which, among other things, led to the founding of the V&A. In the later 19th century, the increasing backlash against industrialisation, led by
John Ruskin, contributed to the Arts and Crafts movement. ====== , Room 46b, The Cast Courts comprise two large, skylighted rooms three storeys high, and two corridor galleries housing hundreds of
plaster casts of sculptures, friezes, architectural details, and
funerary art. One of these is dominated by a full-scale replica of
Trajan's Column, cut in half to fit under the ceiling. The other includes reproductions of various works of Italian Renaissance sculpture and architecture, including a full-size replica of
Michelangelo's David. Replicas of two earlier
Davids by Donatello and
Verrocchio, are also included, although for conservation reasons the Verrocchio replica is displayed in a glass case. The two courts are divided by corridors on both storeys, and the partitions that used to line the upper corridor, the Gilbert Bayes sculpture gallery, were removed in 2004 to allow the courts to be viewed from above.
Ceramics This is the largest and most comprehensive ceramics collection in the world, with over 80,000 objects from around the world. Every populated continent is represented. Much of the top floor of the South Kensington site is devoted to galleries of ceramics. These spaces include display cases with a representative selection and also massed "visible storage" displays of the reserve collection. Well represented in the collection is
Meissen porcelain, from the first factory in Europe to discover the Chinese method of making porcelain. Examples displayed include the Meissen Vulture from 1731 and the
Möllendorff Dinner Service, designed in 1762 by Frederick II the Great. Ceramics from the
Manufacture nationale de Sèvres are extensive, especially from the 18th and 19th centuries. The collection of 18th-century British porcelain is the largest and finest in the world. Examples from every factory are represented, the collections of
Chelsea porcelain and
Worcester porcelain being especially fine. All the major 19th-century British factories are also represented. The Salting Bequest in 1909 enriched the museum's stock of Chinese and
Japanese ceramics and forms part of the finest collection of East Asian pottery and porcelain in the world, including
Kakiemon ware. Many famous potters, such as Josiah Wedgwood,
William De Morgan and
Bernard Leach as well as
Mintons &
Royal Doulton are represented in the collection. There is an extensive collection of
Delftware produced in both Britain and Holland, which includes a flower pyramid over a metre in height.
Bernard Palissy has several examples of his work in the collection including dishes, jugs and candlesticks. The largest objects in the collection are a series of elaborately ornamented ceramic stoves from the 16th and 17th centuries, made in Germany and Switzerland. There is an unrivalled collection of Italian
maiolica and Spanish
lustreware. The collection of Iznik pottery from Turkey is the largest in the world.
Glass The glass collection covers 4000 years of glassmaking, and has over 6000 pieces from Africa, Britain, Europe, America and Asia. The earliest glassware on display comes from Ancient Egypt. Further displays feature glass from Ancient Rome plus Medieval and Renaissance Europe including both
Venetian glass and
Bohemian glass. More recent periods represented include Art Nouveau glass by
Louis Comfort Tiffany and
Émile Gallé and Art Deco works by
René Lalique. There are many examples of crystal chandeliers, both English, displayed in the British galleries, and foreignfor example, a Venetian one attributed to
Giuseppe Briati and dated to about 1750. The
stained glass collection is possibly the finest in the world, covering the medieval to modern periods, and covering Europe as well as Britain. Several examples of English 16th-century
heraldic glass is displayed in the British Galleries. Many well-known designers of stained glass are represented in the collection including, from the 19th century:
Dante Gabriel Rossetti,
Edward Burne-Jones and
William Morris. There is also an example of
Frank Lloyd Wright's work in the collection. Notable designers of the 20th-century represented include
Harry Clarke,
John Piper,
Patrick Reyntiens,
Veronica Whall and
Brian Clarke. The main glass gallery at South Kensington was redesigned in 1994, the glass balustrade on the staircase and mezzanine are the work of
Danny Lane, the gallery covering contemporary glass opened in 2004 and the sacred silver and stained-glass gallery in 2005. In this latter gallery stained glass is displayed alongside silverware starting in the 12th century and continuing to the present. Some of the most outstanding stained glass, dated 1243–1248 comes from the
Sainte-Chapelle, is displayed along with other examples in the new Medieval & Renaissance galleries. The important 13th-century glass beaker known as the
Luck of Edenhall is also displayed in these galleries. Examples of British stained glass are displayed in the British Galleries. One of the most spectacular works in the collection is
the chandelier by
Dale Chihuly in the rotunda at the museum's main entrance.
Contemporary These galleries are dedicated to temporary exhibits showcasing both trends from recent decades and the latest in design and fashion.
Design 1900 – Now Prints and drawings Prints and drawings from the museum's collection of over 750,000 works can be seen by appointment in the
print room (Prints and drawings study room). The collection includes over 10,000 British and 2,000 old master drawings, including works by
Dürer,
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione,
Bernardo Buontalenti,
Rembrandt, Antonio Verrio,
Paul Sandby,
John Russell,
Angelica Kauffman,
John Flaxman,
Hugh Douglas Hamilton,
Thomas Rowlandson,
William Kilburn,
Thomas Girtin,
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres,
David Wilkie,
John Martin,
Samuel Palmer, Sir
Edwin Henry Landseer,
Lord Leighton, Sir
Samuel Luke Fildes and
Aubrey Beardsley. Modern British artists represented in the collection include:
Paul Nash,
Percy Wyndham Lewis,
Eric Gill,
Stanley Spencer, John Piper,
Robert Priseman,
Graham Sutherland,
Lucian Freud, and
David Hockney. The print collection has more than 500,000 objects, covering: posters, greetings cards, bookplates, as well as a comprehensive collection of
old master prints from the Renaissance to the present, including works by Rembrandt,
William Hogarth,
Giovanni Battista Piranesi,
Canaletto,
Karl Friedrich Schinkel,
Henri Matisse and Sir
William Nicholson.
Fashion The costume collection is the most comprehensive in Britain, containing over 14,000 outfits plus accessories, mainly dating from 1600 to the present. Costume sketches, design notebooks, and other works on paper are typically held by the Word and Image department. Because everyday clothing from previous eras has not generally survived, the collection is dominated by fashionable clothes made for special occasions. One of the first significant gifts of the costume came in 1913 when the V&A received the
Talbot Hughes collection containing 1,442 costumes and items as a gift from
Harrods following its display at the nearby department store. Some of the oldest works in the collection are medieval
vestments, especially
Opus Anglicanum. One of the most important pieces in the collection is the wedding suit of
James II of England, which is displayed in the British Galleries. In 1971,
Cecil Beaton curated an exhibition of 1,200 20th-century high-fashion garments and accessories, including gowns worn by leading socialites such as Patricia Lopez-Willshaw,
Gloria Guinness and
Lee Radziwill, and actresses such as
Audrey Hepburn and
Ruth Ford. After the exhibition, Beaton donated most of the exhibits to the museum in the names of their former owners. In 1999, V&A began a series of live catwalk events at the museum titled
Fashion in Motion featuring pieces from historically significant fashion collections. The first show featured
Alexander McQueen in June 1999. Since then, the museum has hosted recreations of various designer shows every year including
Anna Sui,
Tristan Webber,
Elspeth Gibson,
Chunghie Lee,
Jean Paul Gaultier,
Missoni,
Gianfranco Ferré,
Christian Lacroix,
Kenzo and
Kansai Yamamoto amongst others. In 2002, the museum acquired the Costiff collection of 178
Vivienne Westwood costumes. Other famous designers with work in the collection include
Coco Chanel,
Hubert de Givenchy,
Christian Dior,
Cristóbal Balenciaga,
Yves Saint Laurent,
Guy Laroche,
Irene Galitzine,
Mila Schön,
Valentino Garavani,
Norman Norell,
Norman Hartnell,
Zandra Rhodes,
Hardy Amies,
Mary Quant,
Christian Lacroix,
Jean Muir and
Pierre Cardin. The museum continues to acquire examples of modern fashion to add to the collection. The V&A runs an ongoing textile and dress conservation programme. For example, in 2008, an important but heavily soiled, distorted and water-damaged 1954 Dior outfit called 'Zemire' was restored to displayable condition for the
Golden Age of Couture exhibition. The museum has a large collection of shoes; around 2000 pairs from different cultures around the world. The collection shows the chronological progression of shoe height, heel shape and materials, revealing just how many styles we consider to be modern have been in and out of fashion across the centuries.
Furniture In November 2012, the museum opened its first gallery to be exclusively dedicated to furniture. Prior to this date furniture had been exhibited as part of a greater period context, rather than in isolation to showcase its design and construction merits. Among the designers showcased in the new gallery are
Ron Arad,
John Henry Belter,
Joe Colombo,
Eileen Gray,
Grete Jalk,
Verner Panton,
Pierre Paulin,
Thonet, and
Frank Lloyd Wright. The furniture collection, while covering Europe and America from the Middle Ages to the present, is predominantly British, dating between 1700 and 1900. Many of the finest examples are displayed in the British Galleries, including pieces by Chippendale, Adam, Morris, and Mackintosh. One of the oldest objects is a chair leg from
Middle Egypt dated to 200-395AD. The Furniture and Woodwork collection also includes complete rooms, musical instruments, and clocks. Among the rooms owned by the museum are the Boudoir of Madame de Sévilly (Paris, 1781–82) by
Claude Nicolas Ledoux, with painted panelling by
Jean Simeon Rousseau de la Rottière; and Frank Lloyd Wright's Kaufmann Office, designed and constructed between 1934 and 1937 for the owner of a Pittsburgh department store. The collection includes pieces by William Kent,
Henry Flitcroft,
Matthias Lock,
James Stuart,
William Chambers, John Gillow, James Wyatt,
Thomas Hopper,
Charles Heathcote Tatham, Pugin,
William Burges,
Charles Voysey,
Charles Robert Ashbee,
Baillie Scott, Edwin Lutyens,
Edward Maufe,
Wells Coates and
Robin Day. The museum also hosts the national collection of wallpaper, which is looked after by the Prints, Drawings and Paintings department. The Soulages collection of Italian and French Renaissance objects was acquired between 1859 and 1865, and includes several
cassone. The
John Jones Collection of French 18th-century art and furnishings was left to the museum in the
Jones Bequest of 1882, then valued at £250,000. One of the most important pieces in this collection is a
marquetry commode by the
ébéniste Jean Henri Riesener dated c1780. Other signed pieces of furniture in the collection include a
bureau by
Jean-François Oeben, a pair of pedestals with inlaid brass work by
André Charles Boulle, a commode by Bernard Vanrisamburgh and a work-table by
Martin Carlin. Other 18th-century ébénistes represented in the museum collection include
Adam Weisweiler,
David Roentgen,
Gilles Joubert and Pierre Langlois. In 1901, Sir George Donaldson donated several pieces of
art Nouveau furniture to the museum, which he had acquired the previous year at the Paris
Exposition Universelle. This was criticised at the time, with the result that the museum ceased to collect contemporary pieces and did not do so again until the 1960s. In 1986 the Lady Abingdon collection of French Empire furniture was bequeathed by Mrs T. R. P. Hole. and
Edward James and made by Green & Abbott (1938) There are a set of beautiful inlaid doors, dated 1580 from
Antwerp City Hall, attributed to
Hans Vredeman de Vries. One of the finest pieces of continental furniture in the collection is the Rococo Augustus Rex Bureau Cabinet dated c1750 from Germany, with especially fine marquetry and
ormolu mounts. One of the grandest pieces of 19th-century furniture is the highly elaborate French Cabinet dated 1861–1867 made by M. Fourdinois, made from ebony inlaid with box, lime, holly, pear, walnut and mahogany woods as well as marble with gilded carvings. Furniture designed by
Ernest Gimson,
Edward William Godwin, Charles Voysey,
Adolf Loos and
Otto Wagner are among the late 19th-century and early 20th-century examples in the collection. The work of modernists in the collection include
Le Corbusier,
Marcel Breuer,
Charles and Ray Eames and
Giò Ponti. One of the oldest clocks in the collection is an astronomical clock of 1588 by Francis Nowe. One of the largest is James Markwick the younger's
longcase clock of 1725, nearly 3 metres in height and
japanned. Other clockmakers with work in the collection include:
Thomas Tompion,
Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy, John Ellicott and William Carpenter.
Jewellery The museum's jewellery collection, containing over 6000 pieces is one of the finest and most comprehensive collections of jewellery in the world and includes works dating from
Ancient Egypt to the present day, as well as jewellery designs on paper. The museum owns pieces by renowned jewellers
Cartier,
Jean Schlumberger,
Peter Carl Fabergé,
Andrew Grima,
Hemmerle and
Lalique. Other items in the collection include diamond dress ornaments made for
Catherine the Great, bracelet clasps once belonging to
Marie Antoinette, and the Beauharnais emerald necklace presented by
Napoleon to his adopted daughter
Hortense de Beauharnais in 1806. The museum also collects international modern jewellery by designers such as
Gijs Bakker,
Onno Boekhoudt and
Wendy Ramshaw, and African and Asian traditional jewellery. Major bequests include Reverend
Chauncy Hare Townshend's collection of 154 gems bequeathed in 1869, Lady Cory's 1951 gift of major diamond jewellery from the 18th and 19th centuries, and jewellery scholar
Dame Joan Evans' 1977 gift of more than 800 jewels dating from the Middle Ages to the early 19th century. A new jewellery gallery, funded by William and Judith Bollinger, opened on 24 May 2008.
Metalwork This collection of more than 45,000 objects covers decorative ironwork, both
wrought and
cast, bronze, silverware, arms and armour, pewter, brassware and
enamels (including many examples
Limoges enamel). The main iron work gallery was redesigned in 1995. There are over 10,000 objects made from silver or gold in the collection, the display (about 15 percent of the collection) is divided into secular and sacred covering both Christian (
Roman Catholic,
Anglican and
Greek Orthodox) and
Jewish liturgical vessels and other works. The main silver gallery is divided into these areas: British silver pre-1800; British silver 1800 to 1900; modernist to contemporary silver; European silver. The collection includes the earliest known piece of English silver with a dated hallmark, a silver gilt beaker dated 1496–1497. Silversmiths whose work is represented in the collection include
Paul Storr (whose Castlereagh Inkstand, dated 1817–1819, is one of his finest works) and
Paul de Lamerie. The main iron work gallery covers European wrought and cast iron from the medieval period to the early 20th century. The master of wrought ironwork
Jean Tijou is represented by both examples of his work and designs on paper. One of the largest objects is the
Hereford Screen, weighing nearly 8 tonnes, 10.5 metres high and 11 metres wide, designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott in 1862 for the chancel in
Hereford Cathedral, from which it was removed in 1967. It was made by Skidmore & Company. Its structure of timber and cast iron is embellished with wrought iron, burnished brass and copper. Much of the copper and ironwork is painted in a wide range of colours. The arches and columns are decorated with polished quartz and panels of mosaic. One of the rarest works in the collection is the 58 cm-high
Gloucester Candlestick, dated to c1110, made from gilt bronze; with highly elaborate and intricate intertwining branches containing small figures and inscriptions, it is a tour de force of bronze casting. Also of importance is the
Becket Casket dated c1180 to contain relics of
St Thomas Becket, made from gilt copper, with enamelled scenes of the saint's martyrdom. Another highlight is the 1351 Reichenau Crozier. The
Burghley Nef, a salt-cellar, French, dated 1527–1528, uses a
nautilus shell to form the hull of a vessel, which rests on the tail of a parcelgilt mermaid, who rests on a hexagonal gilt plinth on six claw-and-ball feet. Both masts have main and top-sails, and battlemented fighting-tops are made from gold. These items are displayed in the new Medieval & Renaissance galleries.
Musical instruments Musical instruments are classified as furniture by the museum, although Asian instruments are held by their relevant departments. Among the more important instruments owned by the museum are a violin by
Antonio Stradivari dated 1699, an
oboe that belonged to
Gioachino Rossini, and a jewelled
spinet dated 1571 made by Annibale Rossi. The collection also includes a
virginal said to have belonged to
Elizabeth I, and late 19th-century pianos designed by Edward Burne-Jones, and Baillie Scott. The Musical Instruments gallery closed on 25 February 2010, a decision that was highly controversial. The answer, from
Bryan Davies, was that the museum intended to preserve and care for the collection and keep it available to the public, with objects being redistributed to the British Galleries, the Medieval & Renaissance Galleries, and the planned new galleries for Furniture and Europe 1600–1800, and that the
Horniman Museum and other institutions were possible candidates for loans of material to ensure that the instruments remained publicly viewable. and has the loan of 35 instruments from the museum.
Paintings (and miniatures) 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 the Queen
Elizabeth II, 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. There is also on display a fresco by
Pietro Perugino, dated 1522, from the church of Castello at
Fontignano (
Perugia) which is amongst the painter's last works. One of the largest objects in the collection is the Spanish
retable of St George, , 670 x 486 cm, in tempera on wood, consisting of numerous scenes and painted by Andrés Marzal De Sax in
Valencia. 19th-century British artists are well represented. John Constable and
J. M. W. Turner are represented by oil paintings, watercolours and drawings. One of the most unusual objects on display is
Thomas Gainsborough's experimental showbox with its back-lit landscapes, which he painted on glass, which allowed them to be changed like slides. Other landscape painters with works on display include
Philip James de Loutherbourg,
Peter De Wint and
John Ward. In 1857 John Sheepshanks donated 233 paintings, mainly by contemporary British artists, and a similar number of drawings to the museum with the intention of forming a "A National Gallery of British Art", a role since taken on by
Tate Britain; artists represented are
William Blake,
James Barry,
Henry Fuseli, Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, Sir David Wilkie,
William Mulready,
William Powell Frith,
Millais and
Hippolyte Delaroche. Although some of Constable's works came to the museum with the Sheepshanks bequest, the majority of the artist's works were donated by his daughter Isabel in 1888, including the large number of sketches in oil, the most significant being the 1821 full size oil sketch for
The Hay Wain. Other artists with works in the collection include:
Bernardino Fungai,
Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger,
Domenico di Pace Beccafumi,
Fioravante Ferramola,
Jan Brueghel the Elder,
Anthony van Dyck,
Ludovico Carracci, Antonio Verrio,
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo,
Domenico Tiepolo, Canaletto,
Francis Hayman,
Pompeo Batoni,
Benjamin West,
Richard Wilson,
William Etty, Sir
Thomas Lawrence,
Francis Danby,
Richard Parkes Bonington and
Alphonse Legros. Richard Ellison's collection of 100 British watercolours was given by his widow in 1860 and 1873 'to promote the foundation of the National Collection of Water-Color Paintings'. Over 500 British and European oil paintings, watercolours and miniatures and 3000 drawings and prints were bequeathed in 1868–1869 by the clergymen Chauncey Hare Townshend and Alexander Dyce. Several French paintings entered the collection as part of the 260 paintings and miniatures (not all the works were French, for example
Carlo Crivelli's
Virgin and Child) that formed part of the
Jones Bequest of 1882 and are displayed in the galleries of continental art 1600–1800. These include the portrait of
François, Duc d'Alençon by
François Clouet, works by
Gaspard Dughet and by
François Boucher including his portrait of
Madame de Pompadour dated 1758,
Jean François de Troy,
Jean-Baptiste Pater and their contemporaries. Another major Victorian benefactor was
Constantine Alexander Ionides, who left 82 oil paintings to the museum in 1901, including works by
Botticelli,
Tintoretto,
Adriaen Brouwer,
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot,
Gustave Courbet,
Eugène Delacroix,
Théodore Rousseau,
Edgar Degas,
Jean-François Millet,
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones, plus watercolours and over a thousand drawings and prints The Salting Bequest of 1909 included, among other works, watercolours by J. M. W. Turner. Other watercolourists include:
William Gilpin, Thomas Rowlandson, William Blake,
John Sell Cotman, Paul Sandby, William Mulready,
Edward Lear,
James Abbott McNeill Whistler and
Paul Cézanne. There is a copy of Raphael's
The School of Athens over 4 metres by 8 metres in size, dated 1755 by
Anton Raphael Mengs on display in the eastern Cast Court. Miniaturists represented in the collection include
Jean Bourdichon,
Hans Holbein the Younger,
Nicholas Hilliard,
Isaac Oliver,
Peter Oliver,
Jean Petitot,
Alexander Cooper,
Samuel Cooper,
Thomas Flatman,
Rosalba Carriera,
Christian Friedrich Zincke,
George Engleheart,
John Smart,
Richard Cosway and
William Charles Ross.
Photography The collection contains more than 500,000 images dating from the advent of photography, the oldest image dating from 1839. The gallery displays a series of changing exhibits and closes between exhibitions to allow full re-display to take place. In 1858, it presented the world's first international photographic exhibition. The collection includes the work of many photographers from
Fox Talbot,
Julia Margaret Cameron,
Viscountess Clementina Hawarden,
Gustave Le Gray,
Benjamin Brecknell Turner,
Frederick Hollyer,
Samuel Bourne,
Roger Fenton,
Man Ray,
Henri Cartier-Bresson,
Ilse Bing,
Bill Brandt, Cecil Beaton (there are more than 8000 of his
negatives),
Don McCullin,
David Bailey,
Jim Lee and
Helen Chadwick to the present day. One of the more unusual collections is that of
Eadweard Muybridge's photographs of Animal Locomotion of 1887, this consists of 781 plates. These sequences of photographs taken a fraction of a second apart capture images of different animals and humans performing various actions. There are several of
John Thomson's 1876-7 images of Street Life in London in the collection. The museum also holds
James Lafayette's society portraits, a collection of more than 600 photographs dating from the late 19th to early 20th centuries and portraying a wide range of society figures of the period, including bishops, generals, society ladies, Indian maharajas, Ethiopian rulers and other foreign leaders, actresses, people posing in their motor cars and a sequence of photographs recording the guests at the famous fancy-dress ball held at
Devonshire House in 1897 to celebrate Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee. In 2003 and 2007 Penelope Smail and Kathleen Moffat generously donated
Curtis Moffat's extensive archive to the museum. He created dynamic abstract photographs, innovative colour still-lives and glamorous society portraits during the 1920s and 1930s. He was also a pivotal figure in Modernist interior design. In Paris during the 1920s, Moffat collaborated with Man Ray, producing portraits and abstract
photograms or "rayographs".
Sculpture —
Neptune and Triton '', The sculpture collection at the V&A is the most comprehensive holding of post-classical European sculpture in the world. There are approximately 22,000 objects in the collection that covers the period from about 400AD to 1914.
Rodin is represented by more than 20 works in the museum collection, making it one of the largest collections of the sculptor's work outside France; these were given to the museum by the sculptor in 1914, as acknowledgement of Britain's support of France in the
First World War, although the statue of
St John the Baptist had been purchased in 1902 by public subscription. Other French sculptors with work in the collection are
Hubert Le Sueur,
François Girardon,
Michel Clodion,
Jean-Antoine Houdon,
Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux and
Jules Dalou. There are also several Renaissance works by Northern European sculptors in the collection including work by:
Veit Stoss,
Tilman Riemenschneider,
Hendrick de Keyser,
Hans Daucher and
Peter Flötner. Baroque works from the same area include the work of
Adriaen de Vries and
Sébastien Slodtz. The Spanish sculptors with work in the collection include
Alonso Berruguete and
Luisa Roldán represented by her
Virgin and Child with St Diego of Alcala . Sculptors, both British and European, who were based in Britain and whose work is in the collection include
Nicholas Stone,
Caius Gabriel Cibber, Grinling Gibbons,
John Michael Rysbrack,
Louis-François Roubiliac,
Peter Scheemakers, Sir Henry Cheere,
Agostino Carlini,
Thomas Banks,
Joseph Nollekens,
Joseph Wilton, John Flaxman,
Sir Francis Chantrey,
John Gibson,
Edward Hodges Baily,
Lord Leighton, Alfred Stevens,
Thomas Brock,
Alfred Gilbert,
George Frampton, and Eric Gill. A sample of some of these sculptors' work is on display in the British Galleries. With the opening of the Dorothy and
Michael Hintze sculpture galleries in 2006 it was decided to extend the chronology of the works on display up to 1950; this has involved loans by other museums, including Tate Britain, so works by
Henry Moore and
Jacob Epstein along with other of their contemporaries are now on view. These galleries concentrate on works dated between 1600 and 1950 by British sculptors, works by continental sculptors who worked in Britain, and works bought by British patrons from the continental sculptors, such as Canova's
Theseus and the Minotaur. The galleries overlooking the garden are arranged by theme, tomb sculpture, portraiture, garden sculpture and mythology. There is also a section that covers late 19th-century and early 20th-century sculpture, which includes work by Rodin and other French sculptors such as Dalou who spent several years in Britain where he taught sculpture. Smaller-scale works are displayed in the Gilbert Bayes gallery, covering medieval especially English
alabaster sculpture, bronzes, wooden sculptures and has demonstrations of various techniques such as bronze casting using
lost-wax casting. The majority of the Medieval and Renaissance sculpture is displayed in the new Medieval and Renaissance galleries (opened December 2009). One of the largest objects in the collection is the
rood loft from
St. John's Cathedral ('s-Hertogenbosch), from the Netherlands, dated 1610–1613 this is as much a work of architecture as sculpture, 10.4 metres wide, 7.8 metres high, the architectural framework is of various coloured marbles including columns, arches and balustrade, against which are statues and
bas-reliefs and other carvings in alabaster, the work of sculptor Conrad van Norenberch.
Textiles The collection of textiles consists of more than 53,000 examples, mainly western European though all populated continents are represented, dating from the 1st century AD to the present, this is the largest such collection in the world. Techniques represented include weaving, printing,
quilting embroidery,
lace,
tapestry and carpets. These are classified by technique, countries of origin and date of production. The collections are well represented in these areas: early silks from the Near East, lace, European tapestries and English medieval church embroidery. The tapestry collection includes a fragment of the
Cloth of St Gereon, the oldest known surviving European tapestry. A highlight of the collection is the four
Devonshire Hunting Tapestries, very rare 15th-century tapestries, woven in the Netherlands, depicting the hunting of various animals; not just their age but their size make these unique. Both of the major English centres of tapestry weaving of the 16th and 17th centuries respectively, Sheldon &
Mortlake are represented in the collection by several examples. Also included are tapestries from John Vanderbank's workshop which was the leading English tapestry manufactory in the late 17th century and early 18th century. Some of the finest tapestries are examples from the
Gobelins Manufactory, including a set of 'Jason and the Argonauts' dating from the 1750s. Other continental centres of tapestry weaving with work in the collection include
Brussels,
Tournai,
Beauvais,
Strasbourg and
Florence. One of the earliest surviving examples of European quilting, the late 14th-century
Sicilian Tristan Quilt, is also held by the collection. The collection has numerous examples of various types of textiles designed by
William Morris, including, embroidery, woven fabrics, tapestries (including
The Forest tapestry of 1887), rugs and carpets, as well as pattern books and paper designs. The art deco period is covered by rugs and fabrics designed by
Marion Dorn. From the same period there is a rug designed by
Serge Chermayeff. The collection also includes the
Oxburgh Hangings, which were made by
Mary, Queen of Scots and
Bess of Hardwick. However, the Oxburgh Hangings are on permanent long-term loan at
Oxburgh Hall. Karabakh group. 19th-century
Theatre and performance ballgown by
Oscar de la Renta displayed in August 2024) The V&A holds the national collection of performing arts in the UK, including drama, dance, opera, circus, puppetry, comedy, musical theatre, costume, set design, pantomime, popular music and other forms of live entertainment. The Theatre and Performance collections were founded in the 1920s when private collector,
Gabrielle Enthoven, donated her collection of theatrical memorabilia to the V&A. In 1974 two further independent collections were compiled to form a comprehensive performing arts collection at the V&A. The collections were displayed at the
Theatre Museum, which operated from Covent Garden until closing in 2007. Theatre and Performance galleries opened at South Kensington in March 2009 tracing the production process of performance and include a temporary exhibition space. Types of objects displayed include costumes, set models, wigs, prompt books, and posters. 's wedding gown from (
The Crown: Designs Fit for a Queen exhibition, June 2025) The department holds significant archives documenting current practice and the history of performing arts. These include the English Stage Company at the
Royal Court Theatre, the
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and the design collection of the
Arts Council. Notable personal archives include those of
Vivien Leigh,
Peter Brook,
Henry Irving and
Ivor Novello. Rock and pop are well represented with the
Glastonbury Festival archive, Harry Hammond photographic collection and
Jamie Reid archive documenting punk. Costumes include those worn by
John Lennon,
Mick Jagger,
Elton John,
Adam Ant,
Chris Martin,
Iggy Pop,
Prince,
Shirley Bassey and the stage outfit worn by
Roger Daltrey at
Woodstock. In 2024, the museum displayed costumes worn by
Taylor Swift over the course of her career. The exhibition, titled
Taylor Swift Songbook Trail, was conceived by theatre designer
Tom Piper as an "approximately 1 mile long ... journey through V&A South Kensington's galleries" with "13 stops". == Departments ==