When I first started as a V&A Tour Guide some 12 years ago, I quickly became aware of how lucky I was to be in that role. I discover something new about the museum on every visit and by reading the labels on objects throughout the V&A galleries I grew to understand the importance of legacies in allowing the museum to make important acquisitions to help enrich and conserve the collection.
For that reason, I have been helping our Legacy team by giving a series of free tours during Legacy Weeks. These highlight some of the rare and often unique objects that have been acquired from bequests, large and small, and the fascinating stories of the individuals that have generously left a lasting legacy for all to enjoy.
All bequests, whether they are an object donated or a financial donation, feature the donor on the object label, in perpetuity, enabling the donor’s name to live on forever.
The following are three of my favourite objects that I will be including in this year’s tour:
Lady Cory’s bequest: Spray
Lady Cory (1866 – 1947) was a great collector of 18th and 19th century jewellery who had a passion for music as well as jewellery. Her wealth arose from a short lived three-month marriage in 1893 to Lord Cory whose fortune came from coal mining. She was well known for attending opening nights at the Royal Opera House resplendent in her diamond jewellery such as this large spray of assorted flowers, made in about 1850. Some of the flowers are set on springs so that when the wearer moved it would increase their sparkle. Such jewellery items were known as “Tremblers”!
When she died Lady Cory left her complete collection of diamond ornaments to the V&A. Items such as the spray form a core highlight of the museum’s jewellery galleries. She also appreciated the financial need of the V&A and generously also left a sum of money to enable the museum to display her collection.
Geoffrey Ackerman and others: Turkish tankard
Geoffrey Ackerman was a student of history and, being a great appreciator of the arts, left his residuary estate to his favourite charities, including 6% to the V&A. Alongside support from V&A members and HM Government’s Acceptance in Lieu Scheme, Geoffrey Ackerman’s gift helped the museum a great deal in being able to acquire this wonderful late 16th century tankard made of nephrite jade, decorated with gold wire inlay with rubies and emeralds. The tankard, the first of its type to enter a UK public collection, is likely to have been made for the Sultan’s personal use at the Topkapi Palace.
Hugh Phillips’ Bequest: Joshua Ward statue
Hugh Phillips (1886 – 1972), an antique dealer from Hitchin and writer about Mid-Georgian London, left a bequest to the V&A to purchase acquisitions of 18th-century works of art. His generous bequest has enabled some major purchases of sculptures including this Agostini Carlini life-sized statue of Joshua Ward (1685 – 1761), a notorious “quack” doctor in the 1700s who prospered by selling his “Pill and Drop” cure “for every illness”. A larger-than-life character, as reflected in the statue, and one of my favourite objects and subjects to talk about on my public Tours!
The statue was commissioned by Ward, before his death, to be erected in Westminster Abbey. This was not to be, and instead it was given to the Royal Society of Arts before being acquired by the V&A in 1991.
I will be talking more about these objects, along with several others, during my free tour on Thursday 15th October at 14:30 in Legacy Week. Please do come along to learn more about some of the fascinating bequests in the V&A collections.
