PAINTINGS & DRAWINGS
The Paintings Galleries
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Room 88a: Watercolours and drawings
Room 88: Gainsborough's 'showbox' and Constable's oil sketches
Room 87: Constable, Turner and the exhibition landscape
Room 82: The Sheepshanks collection and the Academy
Room 81: The Collection of Constantine Alexander Ionides
These rooms were originally built during the 1850s to house the V&A's paintings, but have been used for other displays since 1939. This is the latest project in the V&A's ten year FuturePlan to transform and renew its displays, generously supported by Mr and Mrs Edwin Davies OBE.
Further support was provided by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Wolfson Foundation.
The refurbished rooms show over 200 oil paintings and watercolours. Many pictures have been cleaned and restored for this display, enabling their quality and colours to be fully appreciated. More paintings are displayed elsewhere in the museum.
One of the rooms houses temporary displays drawn from the museum's renowned collection of watercolours and drawings. Two others focus upon the image of the landscape in Britain during the early 1800s.
Room 88a: Watercolours and drawings
The V&A has acquired thousands of watercolours, drawings and illustrations since its foundation. A selection, rotated regularly, is displayed in this gallery. The rest of this collection may be seen, on application, in the Prints & Drawings Study Room. As watercolours and drawings are damaged by extended exposure to light, works in this room are exhibited at low light levels.
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Room 88: Gainsborough's 'showbox' and Constable's oil sketches
In the 1780s Thomas Gainsborough painted a series of landscapes in oils on glass, which were viewed in a specially constructed 'showbox' which was described in this way: 'The machine consists of a number of glass planes, which are moveable…chiefly landscapes. They are lighted…at the back, and are viewed through a magnifying lens, by which means the effect produced is truly captivating.'
Gainsborough used these landscapes on glass to plan major compositions, and explore lighting effects. Several are exhibited, together with the 'showbox', containing a reproduction of one.
In the early 1800s, many painters sought to capture subtle effects of light and atmosphere by making small-scale oil sketches out of doors. John Constable was the greatest English master of the oil sketch. They shed unique light on his working practice, and are remarkable for their liveliness and truth to nature. Thirty of the oil sketches given to the V&A by Isabel Constable are exhibited here.
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Room 87: Constable, Turner and the exhibition landscape
By the early 1800s, landscape pictures were hugely popular in Britain, and played a major role in the formation of a distinct British cultural identity. Different painters specialised in various types of landscape. John Constable concentrated on the Suffolk scenery he knew best, while JMW Turner travelled widely, and emphasised dramatic effects. Others sought inspiration from the old masters, exotic or poetic subjects.
In this room major landscape paintings by Constable are exhibited beside works by his competitor Turner and their contemporaries, including James de Loutherbourg, Peter De Wint, Francis Danby and James Ward.
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Room 82: The Sheepshanks collection and the Academy
John Sheepshanks founded the paintings collection of the V&A in 1857 with a gift of 233 paintings and a similar number of drawings to found a 'National Gallery of British Art'. His generosity inspired others to give or bequeath pictures.
Most collectors bought from the annual exhibitions at the Royal Academy. There, pictures were hung densely to accommodate as many as possible.
Artists tried various ways to make their exhibits stand out from the others. In this room, 70 pictures are hung close together, to give an impression of an exhibition in the 1830s or 1840s. Half come from Sheepshanks' collection. Most are British, but a few Continental works are included.
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Room 81: The collection of Constantine Alexander Ionides
Constantine Ionides lived in the fashionable London suburb of Holland Park. He assembled a fine art collection, which included over 80 paintings, including Renaissance portraits by Botticelli and Tintoretto, and Pre-Raphaelite works by Burne-Jones and Rossetti. Ionides was also an important early collector of French painters from the 1800s, such as Degas, Delacroix and Millet.
His collection provides a unique insight into progressive taste in Victorian Britain. In this room, the works are densely hung, as in Ionides' home, together with sculpture and furniture which belonged to him or his family, and oriental ceramics similar to pieces he owned.
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