July 10 - V & A Museum and the National Art Library....

Day 13 - July 10

The National Art Library

This library is held within the Victoria and Albert Museum.  It is open to the public but only two rooms.  This library holds over 1,000,000 items in total and has more than 30,000 visitors every year, half of those being art and design students.  It is a closed access library.  This means that every item must be requested through the online system.  It can take the librarians up to 45 minutes to retrieve a book from the shelves.  The environment is monitored throughout the library so that fairly constant temperatures, humidity, and lighting are maintained for the conservation of the books and materials.

This library is 150 years old.  It contains the world's largest Beatrix Potter collection, Dickens manuscripts, da Vinci notebooks, and a Shakespeare folio.  The library has been used for fashion shoots, a Titanic documentary, and a Dickens documentary.  This library started out in the Somerset House during the exhibition of 1851.  The beginnings of the V & A at the Marlborough House were in 1852.  The library moved into its current home around 1857 and was open to the public in 1858.  It became a more academic library in the late 19th century.  Original fittings can be seen throughout the library.  

They are only just at the beginning stages of digitization of their materials.  They do encourage the use of electronic versions over possible damage to the original items.  The library is only allotted 30 hrs a year towards conservation efforts to improve books.  This is not a lot of time.  Most of this time is spent preparing materials that are going out on loan or display.

We were able to view and touch some amazing materials.  Following are some pictures and descriptions.

This is a Book of Hours.  It is an illuminated book of prayers set in French and intended for the deluxe market of the time.

 This is one of Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks.  It is a facsimile of the original (which cost £20,000 to create).  It is quite small and fits in the palm of your hand.  The library has 5 different notebooks which are bound into 3 different volumes.  This notebook is 2 of those notebooks bound together.  This notebook was made int he latter part of da Vinci's life around 1493-1505.  Da Vinci used mirrored writing throughout this notebook.

This book contains illustrations of Zoological birds.  It was put together by Edward Lear in 1832.  It is a very large book as each picture was drawn to scale from live animals.  The first publication of this book was done privately so a list of subscribers is included in the beginning.  It was the first book dedicated to a specific species and holds 42 plates of life size birds.

This image is of an original manuscript of David Copperfield.  Mr. Foster, a friend of Charles Dickens, gives the library all of Dickens' manuscripts after his death.  The library holds all but 2 of the manuscripts that Foster had.  David Copperfield was Dickens' 8th novel written in 1850.  It was first published in serial form.  This explains why in his manuscript things changed along the way.  This manuscript is written in Dickens own hand and is an autobiographical novel.

 This box contains a book with art and letters from William and John Meley (sp?).  They were famous painters of their time.

 These two pictures represent a surrealist poem that Picasso put together in 1937 entitled the Dream & Life of Franco.  There are drawings that go along with the poem.  An English translation from the Spanish and French is included.  The drawings above end up becoming a part of what is now know as Guernica.  

This book is a play that was performed in 1895 and contains 13 lithographs by Joan Miro.  This book is unbound.  The lithographs are considered morphic and humorous.  Miro embellished some 250 volumes.

 This is a book object.  It was created from an old writing desk around 1990.  The artist was always fascinated with words and liked graffiti, medieval books, and music.  This item holds no real meaning.  The artist believed words were magic.

This final picture shows a celebration of Dickens' Edward Drood.  This particular piece was bound by David Sellers in 1972.  This was Dickens final unfinished manuscript.  It is said that the author and the title character are tied together.  

It was absolutely amazing seeing some of these pieces.  My absolute favorite was the da Vinci notebook.  I could have sat and looked at each page all day long.  

Victoria and Albert Museum

After our visit in the library, I ventured out into the museum.  There were several exhibits going on such as David Bowie and a fashion exhibit titled From Club to Catwalk.  Both of these cost extra to view so I did not venture there.  I ventured everywhere else.  I saw some amazing stained glass, silver, jewelry, and casts of all kinds of things.  I loved this emerald necklace in the jewelry section but I was not allowed to take a picture, even without flash.  I also went to the hall with some of Raphael's paintings.  Absolutely beautiful!  I took so many pictures you will just have to check out the album on my Facebook page.  Sorry for the blurry ones.  They were all taken with my cell phone.  This one picture is a piece of glass work hanging over the information desk.

Wandering around and about...

I spent the rest of my afternoon wandering around and utilizing the Tube.  The V & A is at the South Kensington station. I discovered that Earl's Court was only 2 stops down, so I decided to go see the TARDIS that was there.  Here is a picture of said TARDIS.  I decided to have lunch in the pub across the street where I could have a pint and hope that the Doctor appeared.

After lunch, I ventured around on the Piccadilly line.  There is a stop with my name.  There is nothing there but I went anyway.  I then ventured back to Piccadilly Circus to do some shopping.  Piccadilly Circus was a circus.  There were people everywhere.

That is how I spent my day.  That is all for now...