Victoria And Albert Museum: The Conclusion

As students of this blog well know, our several visits to the V&A this summer have been frustrated by unannounced closures of some of the most important sections, e.g., furniture and British history. After finishing the National Gallery, we were feeling lucky, and so hopped a bus to give the V&A another shot. The initial report at the information desk was disappointing. But, pressing on, on our (Vicki's) own initiative, we discovered that the British history section was indeed open--its guards/attendants wondering why there were no visitors that day. Someone didn't get a memo. Anyhow, we spent the rest of our touring day doing British history--social history, furnishings, household items, miscellany, etc.--and feeling much better about our V&A experiences.

Walking past one of the older bits of the V&A; like all the others,
it has grown over the decades since it was founded in the mid-19th

Not how your average British family decorated in the 18th century

Nor slept

Childrens' tea set; but see below

As I always suspected

Tea stuff; the Ashmolean has an entire large room
with nothing but tea stuff; one of the fascinating
things about London, to me, is that you practically
have to go to a museum or a special "high tea"
shoppe, only in the fancier neighborhoods, to
see anyone drinking tea: Costa, Starbucks, Cafe
Nero, Pret a Manger, Gregg's, Caffe Concerto...
have taken over completely, are on every block,
sometimes side-by-side [Vicki, who does not
drink coffee, disagrees with this assessment...]

Hallelujah! Roubiliac's statue of Handel!

18th century ceramic stuff

Wine fountain, cooler, cistern

Longleat before it was taken over by the Safari Park (UK's #1
Safari Park!)

There was fittingly an entire corner hall devoted
to British humor--it deserves a whole museum--
but the audio devices were switched off (COVID) 
and so it wasn't all that funny; Noel Coward's
satirical song above was banned by the BBC
after complaints from those who have no sense
of irony nor satire: he was attacking "humanitarians"
and pacifists, early in the war

Further proof that I always take pix of the same
things, from the same angles: the twin of Pepys'
bookcase at Dyrham Park House

Inlaid-paneled room

Beer-drinkers' corner

Early 18th century tapestry from the Beauvais Tapestry Manufactory;
you could order matching furniture upholstery too, if desired; life
was good, for the .0001%

French table top game about love; we'll have Penelope translate,

perhaps when she's older (I don't think Duolingo covers this area)

Exquisitely carved ivory by Simon Troger, 1741

The Judgement of Solomon

Table fountain, 1745; too large for our RV

Not sure the circular design is OK accoustically

Really fancy hurdy-gurdy; originally the hurdy-

gurdy was a beggar/busker's instrument; by the

18th, rich folks liked to dress up and play "rustic"

but their hurdy-gurdys had to be elegantly designed

More music: I wonder how many virginals the V&A owns

And a flight of silver ends our day, and campaign,
at the V&A

National Gallery Of Art: The Exciting Conclusion

Wednesday was an administrative day (we got haircuts), and Thursday we had a wonderful lunch in Greenwich with friends Howard and Jenni, from Newbury, whom we met on our 2017 Afrika campaign. But Friday it was back to the grind, to finish the National Gallery, and possibly more.

As I said in the previous post, Whistlejacket is perhaps the most 
prominently hung painting in the museum; this from the rotunda,
looking down the long corridor, the only painting you can see

Now in the Big British Room that was closed on our previous
visit...I am restraining and limiting myself to just this one Turner,
Dutch Boats in a Gale, 1801; of the 300 oil paintings, 30,000
sketches and watercolors, and 300 sketchbooks in the Turner
Bequest, the National Gallery has only a few, including his
pairings with Claude and Canaletto, already seen on this blog,
as well as The Fighting Temeraire, currently on loan to the 
Tate Britain, where the preponderance of the Bequest resides

Joseph Wright, An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, 1768;

one of the very greatest classics of British art, pregnant with meaning

and history; Boyle's Restoration era "air pump" enabled much

experimentation and learning in the physics of the time, and in

the development of science as we now know it; a century later,

air pumps were nearly commonplace and did not require specialists

to operate and interpret; nonetheless, experimentation continued, 

here determining what happens to a bird when it is deprived of air;

a painful experiment for some, especially the bird; Leviathan and

the Air Pump is a classic in the history and philosophy of science that

I once read in the way back...

George Stubbs' Whistlejacket, 1762; Stubbs specialized in equine portraiture,
and this is perhaps his most famous; acquired by the National Gallery for
£11MM, which was a lot of £s back in 1997; Whistlejacket was named for
a popular cold remedy, gin and treacle (British will flavor gin with anything);
lost just four races in his career; a popular favorite

Constable's very famous The Hay Wain, 1821

Gainsborough, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Hallett, 1785

The Big British Room, as I call it, Vicki studying the Constable

Moving right along into the National Gallery's collection of
Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings...Cezanne's 
Hillside in Provence, 1890

Monet's Snow Scene at Argenteuil, 1875; we like

Monet, Bathers at La Grenouille, 1869

Monet, Water Lilies, done after 1916 at Giverny, along with
the larger set of Water Lilies now at the Orangerie; one can see
why it was not included

Renoir, The Umbrellas, 1881; must have been
in Normandy

Seurat, Bathers at Asnieres, 1884

Seurat, The Channel at Gravelines, Grand Fort-Philippe, 1890;
included here mostly because we camped there in 2015

Van Gogh, Van Gogh's Chair, 1888; compare 
Gauguin's chair, also by Van Gogh, now in
Amsterdam, I think; all kinds of meaning suggested
about these two

Van Gogh, Sunflowers, 1888

Van Gogh, A Wheatfield, with Cypresses, 1889; you have to 
have been through a mistral, the seasonal high winds of Provence,
to fully appreciate this painting, one of his last

We never miss a Berthe Morisot, one of the few female Impressionists,
here her Summer's Day, 1879

Monet, The Beach at Trouville, 1870; our favorite French beach,
in the north; mostly for the outstanding seafood market; what's
interesting about this is you can actually see, lower right, specks
of sand that flew onto the canvas as he was painting

I thought a fitting end to our National Gallery visits might be one
of Monet's Thames scenes...

But our thoughts were already on the Chunnel and the Eurostar
and the Gare du Nord...and Paris!

Return To The British Museum Again

[We resume our regularly scheduled programming...] 

Still the Elgin Marbles and other Greek stuff we wanted to see, mostly ancient ceramics, were closed. They have been closed since early July, when we arrived. So we contented ourselves again looking at more jewelry, armor, and other things. At least we're getting a fair sense of the encyclopedic nature of this vast museum. Such a contrast with, for example, the National Gallery of Art, which is strictly paintings, strictly European, strictly Medieval to 1900. But still wonderful. And so is the British Museum. Encyclopedically.

A cut-steel chatelaine or belt hook, with needlework
tools, Victorian; I trust you already have one of these,
Tawana

Incredibly carved brooches and such

Bejeweled too; in case you are looking for gift ideas for Vicki,
she really liked this one

Moving right along...an art deco stainless steel corn set...yes,
for corn on the cob...the pitcher to pour melted butter and salt
and pepper shakers; note how I cleverly composed this shot
so that Vicki and I are mirrored on the sides of the pitcher and
shakers...worthy of a Dutch still life!

Steel dress sword (lower), snuff box, and watch owned by the
historian Edward Gibbon (Decline and Fall, etc.)

All sorts of stuff

Gold medallion of Henry VIII; given only to close personal buds;
inscribed "Your pal always, Hank"

Ditto, Anne Boleyn's daughter

Weapon favored by bad guys, a crossbow, reminding me of
happy times in Volterra

Hand-held mortar, 16th century; seriously; as Frederic the Great

once said, God favors the larger calibers

Breastplate for beer drinker

Nice solid gold champagne coolers; "ice pails"; as the museum
description said, these are the only ones of any age that were
not melted down...

This is a pole axe; you do not want to be pole-axed

Three incredible models--olive, mother of pearl, ivory--of the
Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, made for the tourist, I mean pilgrim,
trade there in the 17th century; helpful models, indeed

Forbidden zone...one of the several halls we were pining to see,
closed off

Mise a jour intermediaire

Nous sommes a Paris. Our rental in Bloombury ended August 31st, and this morning we hopped the Eurostar to Paris for the beginning of a two month, more or less, rental in the 2e arrondisement. Rue Saint Denis. Much more to follow. But first I have to do the eight or ten posts remaining from London, a visit we very, very much enjoyed. 

France: countryside south of Calais, 200 mph. Can't decide 
whether this is more Turner or Monet.