Victoria and Albert Museum

Lore & Background

The school included a museum holding plaster casts of ancient sculptures and classical building features as teaching aids. Prince Albert supported this approach and offered the use of Marlborough House for the new Museum of Manufactures. The site was originally occupied by Brompton Park House, extended by the 'Brompton Boilers'—utilitarian iron galleries that included a refreshment room, making the museum the first in the world to provide catering for visitors. For its first fifty years, the museum was an integral part of Britain's national system of art education, with the original School of Design eventually becoming the Royal College of Art.

Reader's Guide

Its holdings are among the largest and most comprehensive globally in ceramics, glass, textiles, costumes, jewellery, silver, metalwork, furniture, medieval objects, sculpture, prints, drawings and photographs. The East Asian collections are particularly strong in ceramics and metalwork, while the Islamic collection is amongst the largest in the Western world. The museum also holds one of the largest collections of post-classical sculpture in the world, with Italian Renaissance sculpture being the largest outside Italy. The museum's legacy includes its pioneering role in public art education and its influence on British industrial design. It was the first museum in the world to provide a catering service for visitors and introduced late-night opening to accommodate working-class visitors. The V&A now operates across six sites in the United Kingdom, including the original South Kensington location, the Young V&A (formerly the Museum of Childhood), V&A Dundee, the V&A Wedgwood Collection, and the recently opened V&A East Storehouse and V&A East Museum. The sites share a common website with an 'Order an Object' service allowing the public to view individual objects at V&A East Storehouse or South Kensington. As a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the museum maintains free entry, continuing its founding mission of public access to art and design education.

Did You Know?

• The museum was the first in the world to provide a catering service for visitors, with a refreshment room included in the 'Brompton Boilers' iron galleries.
• The museum's collection of Italian Renaissance sculpture is the largest outside Italy.
• The museum's East Asian collections are particularly strong in ceramics and metalwork, and its Islamic collection is amongst the largest in the Western world.