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This article provides a conceptual framework that fills a critical gap at the intersection of Chinese art and cultural history. It focuses on the Yongzheng emperor's ‘Illustrated Inventory of Ancient Playthings’ (Guwantu) and its significance within the context of the collecting and courtly elite culture of the High Qing. Through a comprehensive examination of scroll B/C.8–V&A of the Guwantu itself, as well as the relevant source material, this study elucidates the dynamics that shaped the connections between artist, collector and object in the context of the scroll. Furthermore, this contribution throws light on the multiple entangled relationships that underpinned imperial collecting practices of the period, ultimately offering new insights into the socio-cultural milieu of collectors and connoisseurs in early eighteenth-century China.

This article proposes to look at how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the valuation of the world of material culture, and how the subject itself can become an inspiration to describe this particular time. Naive anthropomorphism, and thus criticism of the view of the superior role of human, although present for many years, has taken on a new meaning at this particular time. As a theoretical framework for presenting the proposed issues, I adopt the reference to the interpretation of the concept of an “object” present in the social sciences and humanities, as well as the role of designers and the explication of design in the literature. The picture will be complemented by a reference to the Pandemic Objects project, implemented in 2020 by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, United Kingdom.

Italian medieval and Renaissance manuscript cuttings and miniatures from the Victoria and Albert Museum were analyzed by Raman microscopy to compile a database of pigments used in different periods and different Italian regions. The palette identified in most manuscripts and cuttings was found to include lead white, gypsum, azurite, lazurite, indigo, malachite, vermilion, red lead, lead tin yellow (I), goethite, carbon, and iron gall ink. A few of the miniatures, such as the historiated capital \"M\" painted by Gerolamo da Cremona and the Petrarca manuscript by Bartolomeo Sanvito, are of exceptional quality and were analyzed extensively; some contained unusual materials. The widespread usage of iron oxides such as goethite and hematite as minor components of mixtures with azurite is particularly notable. The use of a needle-shaped form of iron gall ink as a pigment rather than a writing material was established by both Raman microscopy and x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy for the Madonna and Child by Franco de' Russi.

This article sheds fresh light on women who have been important benefactors to the National Gallery from its foundation in 1824 to the present (2020), largely in terms of donating paintings but also through financial aid to support the acquisition of paintings and frames, building work, staff posts, publications, exhibitions, and various public events. Through a mixture of case-studies and basic data analysis, the following set of core questions is addressed: (1) Who were the Gallery’s women donors? (2) Which paintings did they give and in what other ways have they been generous to the Gallery? (3) What patterns within their donating can be discerned? (4) What were their motivations for their gift giving? (5) Why have their donations been easy to lose sight of? (6) What is the Gallery doing now, ahead of its 200th anniversary in 2024, to draw attention to the significant contributions of its women donors past and present? It is hoped that the information compiled here will act as a useful reference point for others in the field when probing similar types of provenance records and will encourage readers to share information to help us fill persisting gaps in our data.

John Charles Robinson (1824-1913), though apparently not a humble man, was indeed a vital protagonist in the story of the early South Kensington Museum. In 1853 he became the Museum’s first curator, gathering together the foundations of an internationally renowned permanent collection and publishing an important series of scholarly catalogues on the Museum’s decorative arts holdings. His diverse responsibilities at South Kensington arguably paved the way for modern museum practice, consolidating activities in the private sphere (such as art dealing and criticism) with his public roles as curator, conservator, researcher, archivist and manager at a government-funded museum. From his carefully thought out acquisitions polices, to his complex educational display schemes and scholarly promotional catalogues, Robinson’s work at South Kensington made him a key contributor to the professionalization of museum practice. This article analyses Robinson’s display schemes at the Museum, considering the private Parisian collections that inspired them, his attempt to teach good taste to the visitor and his influence on British collecting habits. It also highlights Robinson as a prominent figure at the centre of a vast network of important artistic names, whose infamous contribution to professional museum practice in Britain blurred the boundaries of the role of the private collector and public curator in the mid- to late-nineteenth century.

This article considers poster display as a distinctive activity and defining aspect of British modernism between the First and Second World Wars, looking to the 'Exhibition of British and Foreign Posters' at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1931, the first in the Museum to expose the poster-image as a medium in its own artistic, technical, historical and popular right. The article examines the event as signifying core characteristics of a 'poster movement' prevailing during the inter-war years. The period saw varied exhibitions promoting commercial and graphic design of various kinds, of which 'British and Foreign Posters' is a particularly rich example. The exhibition attracted commercial, artistic and curatorial forces, substantiating the idea of a movement, and approached commercial art from a perspective that raised new awareness towards graphic material in urban and museum space alike. To clarify the curatorial approach the analysis draws on a theoretical scheme of ecological semiotics, the concept of 'counterability' and contextualizing displays, which I name 'poster milieux': this example demonstrates how contemporary commercial art was showcased in combination with historical material, and how the curating of more than 600 graphic items effectively integrated the fundamental fact that posters are defined by their physical rootedness.

Inclusivity in museums is commonly considered a new, 21st-century concept. It is seen as postmodern and it is frequently opposed to the alleged elitism of the modern museum. However, inclusivity has been a consideration since the very foundation of museums; indeed, one might argue that the very idea of a public museum is based on the notion of inclusivity. If it is misleading to oppose the inclusivity of the post-museum to the elitism of the modern museum, it CAN be argued that the definition of inclusivity has changed radically over the past two and a half centuries. It is this change of meaning that I intend to discuss in my paper. Using three museums, the Louvre, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Newark Museum as case studies, I will show not only that the notion of inclusivity has changed but also that the definition of inclusivity is culture-bound. Finally, I will connect the three historical examples with the present to see whether lessons may still be learned from these older models of inclusivity.

Inspired by research undertaken for the new Medieval & Renaissance Galleries at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Re-thinking Renaissance Objects explores and often challenges some of the key issues and current debates relating to Renaissance art and culture. * Puts forward original research, including evidence provided by an in-depth study arising from the Medieval & Renaissance Gallery project * Contributions are unusual in their combination of a variety of approaches, but with each paper starting with an examination of the objects themselves * New theories emerge from several papers, some of which challenge current thinking

Tim Marlow meets the writer Jung Chang, whose family history Wild Swans became an international best seller, and in more recent years published a ground-breaking biography of Mao Zedong. Jung Chang chose the Victoria and Albert Museum in London to explore her life and work through a selection of objects in this great collection.

The form of the display mediated the meaning of decorative objects in the encounter of ‘Arts and Crafts’ and ‘Art Nouveau’ at the First International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Art held in Turin in 1902. Most European displays featured model interiors with architectural fittings or the arrangement of furniture ensembles that located the decorative art in the private, domestic sphere. For example, Siegfried Bing recreated the dressing room designed by George de Feure, familiar from his popular ‘Art Nouveau Bing’ pavilion at the Paris exposition of 1900, in the French section. This article suggests that this type of display reaffirmed the pre-eminent status of the consumer. In contrast, the English section organized by the painter and designer Walter Crane under the auspices of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society adopted a museum paradigm for their display. With objects hung on the gallery walls and arranged in vitrines, the Arts and crafts display focused on production and offered decorative objects as public works rather than private objects. As contemporary critics revealed, the rhetorics of these displays underscored the cultural and political tensions surrounding decorative objects and their meanings in this moment.