Victoria and Albert Museum, London
WORKS OF THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM YOU SHOULDN’T MISS
How to choose the works of the Victoria and Albert Museum to see without missing out its masterpieces?
The challenge is enormous but someone’s got to do it. So here’s the list, that it will be certainly modified and widened in the future, also thanks to your suggestions (I’m looking forward to reading them in the comments) of the unmissable masterpieces.
Works of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London
WORKS OF THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM
The charm of the Victoria and Albert Museum is due to the fact that it’s not a museum where to admire only paintings, but it displays also sculptures and everyday objects, furniture and design items.
Here are what works of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London you must know and see, as soon as possible.
The Three Graces by Canova
Among the works of the Victoria and Albert Museum the “Three Graces” by Antonio Canova is my favourite.
You will be enchanted by this sculpture group, and another version is on display in the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.
The sculpture achieved success as soon as it was exhibited and, despite many purchase requests, Canova sold it to Eugène de Beauharnais, son of Josephine Bonaparte. A second version was commissioned by the Duke John Russell, who brought it to London.
Miraculous Draught of Fishes by Raphael
Miraculous Draught of Fishes by Raphael
Among the works of the Victoria and Albert Museum is also this tempera painting on paper that belongs to the cartoons for the tapestries for the Sistine Chapel.
Pope Leo X commissioned Raphael to make preparatory cartoons for some tapestries to place inside the Sistine Chapel. The cartoons were sent to Brussels and transformed into tapestries in the workshop of Pieter van Aelst, who made other copies and, maybe, lent also to other workshops.
It was Queen Victoria who placed it in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1865.
Salisbury Cathedral from the Close by Constable
Salisbury Cathedral from the Close by Constable
Among the unmissable works of the Victoria and Albert Museum are also paintings by Constable, the major English landscape painter together with William Turner.
“Salisbury Cathedral from the Close” is one of Constable’s most famous paintings, commissioned by John Fisher, a friend of the artist and Bishop of Salisbury. However, the work wasn’t immediately appreciated, because of the sky, considered too cloudy, so Constable had to paint another version, which is now part of the collection of works of the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York.
The first version, the rejected one, is the work on display in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.