loot of ages

I visited the Victoria and Albert yesterday - my first British museum ever. What did I expect? A lot of stuff, somewhat haphazardly organized? My only pre-knowledge came from guide books, a description of the starting principles of the museum, and reports from friends and relatives.

The reality is; how else can you display the loot of ages past?? Very wisely, I decided to start with the jewelery exhibit. That way, I figured, I would see the most alluring exhibit first (well, alluring to me), and dabble at the rest. That was wise. I did not see all, nor did I even manage to dabble in all. The jewelery exhibit was unbelievable. How could they cram so much goodness in such a relatively small set of rooms?! No pictures there - no photography permitted. I did a couple of sketches before I became overwhelmed by the scale of the exhibit. I saw so many items that I had only seen in books before. I saw examples of almost every style of jewelery I have been introduced to. Jewels from the various sacks of India. Jewels from ancient Rome, Greece and Etruria. Jewels from every country and period I could think of, made of every material I have ever heard of. They even had a gorgeous cut-steel chatelaine. That one's for you, mum...

The display was not random at all. Darkened room, beautiful descriptive cards, each jewel displayed in its best aspect. There was a glowing blue circular stair made of some transparent plastic leading up to a small mezzanine within the display rooms. Stunning! The whole aspect was magical. I could have stayed there for hours, if I hadn't started to feel a little faint. That'll teach me to dive in to a vast monument before jet lag was worn off. There were some excellent video displays, including the fun interactive one that also resides on the website for the exhibit.

Some people are never pleased. With all this glory, I overheard a man asking one of the docents; "Where are the pearls? Don't you have any strings of pearls here?" Whatever.

I staggered out after nearly an hour and a half in the exhibit. Lunch and copious quantities of water were highly necessary. After? Well, I nearly was lost for good in the textile rooms. The displays are lovely. BUT. Then I found the "study room" with hundreds of pull-out racks of textile samples - from every country and every age. Oi. Anyone could pull the rack out, and place it in one of the many racks for examination. There was hardly anyone in there! Such riches! Each rack had a typed card (by the looks of it, typewriter vintage 1950s) with the origin of the piece, and who donated it. Did I pull any racks for examination? What a foolish question. There were a couple of samples of beaded work. Well, there was some textile involved... I could photograph if I wished to, but unfortunately the light was not really good enough for close up work. So, a couple more sketches.

The textile rooms also included a whole section of Asian textiles - the Chinese half had My Dragon! The dragon I painstakingly embroidered a copy of many years ago. I wanted another couple of hours there to look at these alone.

I wandered through rooms of silver, medieval bits, paintings, a room of Rembrandt etchings, a room of miniatures, a corridor of ironwork. Oh, the corridor of ironwork. There were gates and grates, locks and keys, boxes and bell pulls, windows, gargoyles, benches, and more than I can even remember.

There is a library there; a proper library with spiral staircase and stacks surrounded with a wrought-iron balcony. And a guard, who very nicely informed me I'd need to check my bag in the cloakroom, and would have to request the books I wanted to be brought to me. Some further research would be involved to find out what I would want to see. Browsing not an option. Oh well.

There were rooms of musical instruments. All mixed up. There was one proper looking violin - "Oh, a Strad!" sez I, glance going automatically to the sign. Well, ok. Not original varnish, massive soundpost crack on the back. On further inspection, most of the instruments were in pretty bad shape; warped tops, peeling laminations on the guitars, gaping cracks in the back. But so many instruments! There were also pull-out cabinets in these rooms as well; huge cabinets that were on floor and ceiling rollers. Massive!

The instrument rooms were arranged as a huge mezzanine loft - open to the rooms below. The area below is currently a special exhibit (5 pound admission) on fashion. There was a delicious incongruity in hearing the very pop music drifting up and around the medieval and renaissance instruments above them. I would have even paid the 5 pounds to go in, but by that time, it was already nearly 5 pm. 5 pm! The museum would close in 45 minutes. No, not enough time to do justice to the exhibit. I did go to the museum shop (the only disappointment), where I found books on the jewelery exhibit, a few assorted books on jewelery (many of which I had already) some post cards and nothing on the instruments. Oh well. Can't have everything.

As I said. The loot of ages. Phenomenal.