Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington, London

We dropped by this wonderful museum soon after arriving in London (very jet lagged). Our hotel room was not ready yet so we had a few hours to kill. We managed to see a few interesting and varied things.

In this room of old statues we saw a row of black bronze angels on white pedestals, displayed to our right. In this photo you can only see 2 of them. There were more (4 in total). These angels were intended for Cardinal Wolsey's tomb. He planned for an extravagant tomb for himself. The angels never made it there. Henry VIII confiscated the angels and wanted them for his tomb. That never was realized. The angels were lost and were recently found. Look to the bottom right on this photo to see them. If you do a google search of "Cardinal Wolsey Angels ", you will find several articles about the recovery of these angels.

Next we discovered the performing arts and theater section of the museum. Old posters of Gilbert and Sullivan productions caught our eye. They were done in Japanese wood block printing style. The artist was the Brit John Hassall. The year was 1929. If you search on the Internet, you can find out more about this artist.

The play "War Horse" has been playing in London for a while now. You may have seen the movie adaptation a few years ago in the U.S. Here is an actual horse that had been in the shows and is now "retired" to the museum. Note that 2 people are needed to make the horse move on stage. You can see this in the museum display (one person up front; the other in the rear).

The opera costume of Boris Godunov (from Moussorgsky's opera of the same name) caught my eye as I was about to perform that opera in Cornwall a few weeks later. The full length heavily jeweled robe was made in 1910 by Alexander Golovin for Boris' coronation scene in the opera. The famous Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin wore it in a production associated with the Russian opera season put on in Paris with the help of Serge Diaghilev. Diaghilev was organizing ballet and opera productions, especially in Paris, starting around 1908. This is one magnificent costume.

In the entrance to the museum you can see a distinctive glass sculpture by a very recognizable American Dale Chihuly. The swirling nature of his works is unmistakable. I have seen his works in many museums all over the U.S. 

This museum has a wide variety of exhibits. You surely will find something of interest there (and why not go, it's free admission ?!)