The Victoria and Albert Museum, or ‘V & A Museum’ in short, is in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the city of London, UK. This area is known as “Albertopolis” because of its association with Prince Albert, the Albert Memorial, and the major cultural institutions with which he was associated. These include the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, the Royal Albert Hall and Imperial College London. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
It is the world’s largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. The departments of Asia include art from South Asia, China, Japan, Korea and the Islamic world. The East Asian collections are among the best in Europe, with particular strengths in ceramics and metalwork, while the Islamic collection is amongst the largest in the Western world.
The holdings of ceramics, glass, textiles, costumes, silver, ironwork, jewelry, furniture, medieval objects, sculpture, prints and printmaking, drawings and photographs are among the largest and most comprehensive in the world. V&A also owns the world’s largest collection of post-classical sculpture, with the holdings of Italian Renaissance sculpture being the largest outside Italy.
Since 2001 the museum has embarked on a major £150m renovation programme. The new European galleries for the 17th century and the 18th century were opened on 9 December 2015. Today the V&A frequently ranks in top 20 of world’s most popular museums.
All Around The World 