V&A Network

Updates and news from our curators, educators, exhibition teams, digital teams and from the artists, designers and partners we collaborate with.

A Little Series of Horses

Friday, April 5, 2013 - 14:29
Posted in:
The Factory Presents... Revealing the Prints, Drawings, Paintings, Photographs and Digital Art Collections
    Print by unknown artist 27879:8 Today being the day of the Grand National, I thought I'd like to show you this little series of early engravings of horses. We don't know who created them or quite when they were made (though we think it was around 1600) but to me the artist has given them a certain life and charm. Print by unknown artist 27879:19 As anyone who has tried...
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Early print of a horse

Clothworkers': Hanging

Thursday, April 4, 2013 - 10:06
Posted in:
V&A Network
By William Newton, Collections Management Assistant, Clothworkers' Centre for Textiles and Fashion Study and Conservation. If an item of dress is deemed sturdy enough, it is hung. More than four-thousand objects from the V&A’s fashion collection are stored on a hanger, which is essential for the management of our storage space. As the poet Ben Jonson realised, more (person-shaped)...
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A few items looking far happier at Blythe House

Inspirational Collectors: Anne and Fernand Renier

Tuesday, April 2, 2013 - 11:02
Posted in:
V&A Network
By Frances Willis, Acting Frederick Warne Curator of Children’s Literature. Since 1967, the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) has chosen Hans Christian Andersen’s birthday, 2 April to call attention to children’s books and to publicise and celebrate a love of reading worldwide. It seems therefore an apt time to consider the value for scholars and those who...
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The Renier Collection, Blythe House, V&A Museum

Twenty Objects for Twenty Years: Martin Schongauer, "The Resurrection", Colmar, 1479-1480

Tuesday, April 2, 2013 - 08:46
Posted in:
News from the Learning Department
By Paula Nuttall, Director of Late Medieval to Early Renaissance Year Course.   With Easter in mind  - though in the current cold weather it feels more like Christmas, only without the mince pies, carols and good cheer – this week I’ve chosen Martin Schongauer’s beautiful engraving of The Resurrection of Christ.  It comes from roughly the same time and place as...
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Martin Schongauer, "The Resurrection"

Easter Bonnets

Thursday, March 28, 2013 - 12:02
Posted in:
The Factory Presents... Revealing the Prints, Drawings, Paintings, Photographs and Digital Art Collections
Guest post by Daniel Milford Cottam: Fancy some last minute inspiration for your Easter Bonnet? These six lithographs come from a series of eighteen of beautiful women in fantastical costumes representing various aspects of Paris. They were created in about 1910 by an artist signing himself simply as ‘Laviny’. We yet don’t know much about him, but he clearly had quite the...
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Marion Thring – First Female Guide-Lecturer at the V&A

Friday, March 22, 2013 - 16:09
Posted in:
V&A Network
By Nicholas Smith, Archivist. For the V&A Archive’s contribution to International Women’s Month, I have chosen to profile Marion Thring, the first full-time female guide-lecturer at the V&A. Today, approximately 65% of the V&A’s workforce is female. This was not always the case; in the early twentieth century, museum work was considered a predominantly masculine...
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Marion Thring, photograph published in the Daily Sketch (9 April 1935)

Twenty Objects for Twenty Years: Christ on a Donkey, Germany, c.1480

Friday, March 22, 2013 - 13:01
Posted in:
News from the Learning Department
  By Paula Nuttall, Director of Late Medieval to Early Renaissance Year Course.   This statue of the blessing Christ riding a donkey is an appropriate choice of object for Holy Week.  This type of image, known as a Palmesel (literally ‘Palm Ass’), was common in German towns during the late middle ages, and was carried in processions on Palm Sunday, the Sunday before...
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Christ on an ass

Weird and Wonderful Wallpapers

Thursday, March 21, 2013 - 16:59
Posted in:
The Factory Presents... Revealing the Prints, Drawings, Paintings, Photographs and Digital Art Collections
Guest post by Daniel Milford Cottam: “My wallpaper is killing me. One of us will have to go” – Oscar Wilde. Among many other things, the Prints, Drawings and Paintings collection also includes a spectacular selection of wallpapers. This post showcases some of the more striking, unusual and eclectic wall-coverings spanning the late 18th to the late 19th centuries. Click on the...
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Tilda Swinton's dinner speech at the opening of David Bowie is

Thursday, March 21, 2013 - 16:52
Posted in:
V&A Network
Dear Dave When I asked you if you wanted me to say anything here tonight You said 'Only three words, one of them testicular..' So i'll pass that on Here I am at surely the most eclectic of all the London branches of Bowie AnonymousAll the nicest possible freaks are here We're in the Victoria and Albert Museum preparing to rifle through your drawersIt's truly an amazing thing...
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Tilda Swinton at the opening of David Bowie is

The Life and Work of Etienne Delaune (1)

Thursday, March 21, 2013 - 12:15
Posted in:
Engraved Ornament project
Guest blog entry by Matthew Howles The work of Etienne Delaune creates a vivid portrait of a cosmopolitan artist who worked on a number of different subjects in various styles, and whose career was marked by both success and insecurity.   Probably born in 1518, Delaune worked as a goldsmith in Paris in the 1550s. In 1552 he was appointed to the royal mint, where he would have produced...
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The V&A Network is a blog for anyone interested in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

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