Saturday, August 1, 2026

British Out-Takes, 2026, III

At the V&A...linguistic change is so interesting...we had
to ask a docent whether there was a dragon behind the
"hoarding"...turns out hoarding is just "boarding"...a 
wooden barrier

 


Strolling through Belgravia one day...the topiary announcing a 
pretty nice shop..."luxury goods"

One of three windows at an antique camera shop near Victoria Station

So much going on in this shot...

Turn signals embedded in the headlights

Still processing this

Fellow tourists

After hours at the Horse Guards

Poetry stand ..."on any topic...pay what you want"...there now are designated 
buskers' stations at Trafalgar

Sic transit, Gloria...having been replaced in yonder fountain, the old,
worn griffins are now awaiting their fate... The Regent's Park

Nearby sculpture in a business complex

Show curtain look on Oxford Street

Standard British public service

Dressed for Oxford Street

A few blocks from our flat

As an MP, he could walk to work; moved on after he got
the job at the Admiralty

Fellow bus rider..got off at the Churchill 
War Rooms


New signage at the V&A Storehouse...replacing the 
conventional...






































Dawn of our last full day...see you again, London!


Victoria and Albert Museum, III

For our last full touring day in London, June 21st, we chose to visit the V&A once more. Although the museum is international in scope, we wanted to focus on the historic Brit bits, much, but not all of which, we have seen before. Closure in some sense. I'll just post pix that, I'm pretty sure, I have not posted before.

Interesting how differently the US and the UK approach such issues currently


















Three-fer of Charles I...head shots...

Late Medieval copy of The Golden Legend, compiled by
Jacobus de Voragine, in the mid-1250s, on which much
Christian lore and maybe even some doctrine are based;
prior to the 1500s, it saw more editions than the Bible,
and was regularly translated into the vernacular; define
"hagiography"...

Joris Hufnagel, Nonesuch Palace from the South, 1568; the earliest
and most detailed depiction of Henry VIII's grandest palace; first
known landscape water-color in England



Gift items from the court of Henry VIII

Himself, by an unknown Anglo-Flemish painter; one
can appreciate how it was that the younger Holbein
revolutionized portraiture...

Torrigiani's (painted) terra cotta bust of Henry VII;
students of this blog will recall that Torrigiani was the guy
that busted Michaelangelo's nose



Stairwell landing...

Moving right along, we are now admiring works by
Glasgow favorite Charles Rennie Mackintosh

And William Morris

Penelope, designed by Sir Edward Coley Burnes-Jones,
realized in stained glass by the Morris company; we're
always on the lookout for Penelopes



Draperies by Morris, who spend much time studying in
the V&A (back when it was just the South Kensington)

Chest painted by Morris

More stained glass by Morris' company; we have enjoyed
the full windows he designed for Winchester Cathedral

Asparagus, anyone?



Charles Sargeant Jagger, Cathal and the Woodfolk, 1914,
bronze relief on oak frame; Cathal was an Irish folk hero



Cabinet, Bruce James Talbert, 1878, classical themes...won grand prize
at the Paris International Exposition, 1878




Exhibition cabinet, design by Alexandre Eugene Prignot,
manufactured by Jackson and Graham, London, 1855;
another prize winner



Paxson's sketch for the Crystal Palace of 1851

A page from Chippendale's Director catalog, 1754
Drawing Room Entry, Northumberland House, 1775;
very Pompeiian, non?



And thousands and thousands of more precious wonders...next time...