ART.
THE NEW VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM. TODAY the King opens the new buildings of the great Museum at South Kensington, the foundation of which his father did so much to promote, and which is actually built on land acquired out of the surplus proceeds of the Great Exhibition of 1851. Of the facade we will only say that no excuse can be found for adopting in continuation of an admir- able Renaissance design a completely different style from the original, and, in spite of the architect's assurances to the contrary, we can see very little reason for calling this extra- ordinarily ugly collection of shapes anything but Barbaric. What Renaissance architect, for example, would have chosen our Imperial Crown for the motif of his central lantern P The more than ordinary discomfort, however, which the visitor experiences on his approach becomes as nothing in comparison with the admiration, and even amazement, that be must feel on crossing the threshold. However much the embellishments of the exterior are to be deprecated, it must be admitted that the provision of a vast number of windows, the necessity for which is said to have led to the adoption of the architectural style we have deplored, has been remarkably successful within. Here we find at last that unsurpassed collection of objects of art, which have hitherto jostled one another in closely packed cases, lining mysterious corridors, seen sometimes only by the strange light of stained-glass windows, placed to their best advantage in magnificently lighted, well-proportioned, spaciou.0
rooms and halls. The effect is overwhelming. The value and beauty of this amazing exhibition are made for the first time abundantly clear. Space, that almost necessary adjunct to all beautiful things, has been lavishly expended, with the result that the . many masterpieces, for some time hidden from our sight, take on such an added splendour in their new surroundings as to give the spectator a sense almost of discovery when looking at old friends. Indeed, it is difficult to believe that nearly all these exhibits wore formerly housed in the old part of the building, which even now Seems overcrowded.
It would be quite impossible in the short space of this article to give the reader any detailed description of the position of the various Departments. The galleries alone, we are told in the temporary guide printed for the use of the Press, cover a distance of one mile in length, not to speak of the area of an acre and a half taken up by the covered courts. 4...brief general outline of the plan of the new portion of the Museum will be all that can be attempted, with a more detailed description of some of the effects of position and 911 entering the building from the Cromwell Road the visitor finds himself in a vestibule running up through two floors of the building. From the right and left lead two stair- cases to the three floors of side-lighted galleries which run round the outer walls of the new part of the Museum. These galleries contain in a basement floor to the left the collections of decorative and domestic Gothic woodwork, and early and later Renaissance furniture,—Italian, French, Spanish, and German. In the basement galleries to the right of the vestibule are the specimens of French, Spanish, and
English sculpture in wood and stone, The galleries above these on the ground floor contain to the left the English !erniture, which is a revelation of beauty, and to the right,
III Perhaps the most fascinating rooms of all, the extra- ordinarily rich collection of smaller Italian sculptures and
Della Robbia ware. The next floor is given up to textiles and glass, and the top floor entirely to glass and ceramics. Out of the vestibule one enters the square central hall, and out of
it again run east and west the two main halls of the building.
admirably proportioned and lit from above. These, with the courts adjoining the parallel passage which runs the whole length of the building and connects the various courts and are the entire height of the building. Li the right-hand hall
a very splendid effect is obtained by the insertion into the large
white wall spaces of the superb collection of Italian architectural sculpture, such as doorways, singing galleries, and fireplaces. At the end into a circular alcove is built an exquisite Florentine chapel, with its altar and Della Robbie frieze. Its proportions are seen to absolute advantage, and w_ e feel ourselves indeed fortunate to possess so important a fragment of antique Florence within our walls. Near by is an extremely fine fireplace cut in grey stone, and ascribed to Desiderio da Settignano. On the opposite wall is the _Magnificent monument from Verona of the Marchese Spinetta Malaspina seated on a noble horse and supported by two soldiers in Roman dress, with a red marble pulpit below encircled by elegant statuettes. The whole composition has for background a tent-like canopy of stucco, and is, on one's first entrance, the most noticeable group in the hall. The West and corresponding hall on the other side of the centre is at present almost unoccupied, as is the large octagonal court roofed with glass in which to-day's principal ceremony ,takes place. It is not stated what collection is to be placed here. Adjoining this we find the series of six smaller courts, already mentioned, in which are now placed the framed examples of carpets and tapestries. In one of these is to be seen the marvellous and world-famed Persian carpet from the mosque of Ardabil, woven in 1540, with others of almost equal beauty, one of them formerly the property of William Morris. The Flemish tapestries, some of which are as fine as those at the Cluny Museum in Paris, appear to wonderful advantage in their new surroundings, and Mr. Salting has added to the variety of the collection by lending his lovely Italian piece, representing a group of cupids playing among vines and fruit-trees.
A new feature in the arrangement of the Museum is the e_reation of the gallery set aside for loan collections. Mr. Salting and Mr. J. Fitzhenry, however, have generously allowed their treasures to be scattered according to their most appropriate positions, with time result that there is hardly a Department which is not enriched by objects from these
extraordinary collections. Many of Mr. Pierpont Morgan's "examples" are still in the Museum, among them his bronze Eros, which provoked such universal admiration at the Burlington Fine Art Society's Exhibition some years ago.
Steps from these courts lead to the open balconies which are built on the top of the long central passage, thus com- manding a view into both courts and halls. Here are displayed sonic of those embroideries, damasks, silks, and flowered stuffs of all kinds for the variety and quantity of which we believe the Museum to be unrivalled in Europe. Among the most delicate are the Chinese tapestries. The visitor, on returning to the main entrance, should not fail to notice the interesting collection of Florentine busts in the style of the fifteenth century by the modern Italian Baatianini, one of which, it will be remembered, deceived, quite innocently on the sculptor's part, such experts as the Directors of the Louvre. There is a marble head here so much in the Spirit of the early sculptors that one can hardly believe the card on which is inscribed " Middle of 19th Century."
The bare outline given above of the positions of some of the most important Departments has not even touched on the leather-work, engraving, design, enamels, china, and iron- work. But perhaps enough has been said to show that there can be nothing but praise for the new arrangement of the contents of the Museum, which exhibits to the ordinary visitor in the most entertaining manner the wealth and beauty of the collection, without in any way interfering with the oeiginal object of the Museum,—that it should be the Art School, so to speak, of Industrial England.
The general impression produced by the new Museum can best be summed up by recording a saying overheard in the galleries on Wednesday :—" I feel as if I bad come into a
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