Victoria and Albert Museum

Collections

The museum collection consists of 2.83 million objects of which, as of March 2025, 62,894 objects were on public display across the different sites. Some 40 to 50 objects are contested in terms of past ownership.

The V&A's holdings are organised into four main curatorial departments:

• Decorative Art and Sculpture;
• Performance, Furniture, Textiles and Fashion;
• Art, Architecture, Photography and Design;
• Asia.

The following table lists the total number of objects within each collection across all of the museum's public sites, and at its collection store in Dean Hill Park, Wiltshire, as of September 2025.

Architecture

In 2004, the V&A alongside Royal Institute of British Architects opened the first permanent gallery in the UK covering the history of architecture with displays using models, photographs, elements from buildings and original drawings. At the same time, the RIBA Drawings and Archives Collection was transferred to the museum, joining the already extensive collection held by the V&A. With over 600,000 drawings, over 750,000 papers and paraphernalia, and over 700,000 photographs, together they form the world's most comprehensive architectural resource.

Many European and American architects' drawings are held in the collection. The RIBA's holdings of over 330 drawings by Andrea Palladio are the largest in the world. Also well represented are Jacques Gentilhatre and Antonio Visentini.

British architects whose drawings, and in some cases building models, are in the collection, include: Inigo Jones, Sir Christopher Wren, Robert Adam, Sir William Chambers, Sir John Soane, Sir Charles Barry, Charles Robert Cockerell, Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, Richard Norman Shaw, Sir Edwin Lutyens, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Charles Holden, Lord Richard Rogers, Lord Norman Foster.

As well as period rooms, the collection includes parts of buildings, for example, the two top stories of the facade of Sir Paul Pindar's house dated c. 1600 from Bishopsgate with elaborately carved woodwork and leaded windows, a rare survivor of the Great Fire of London. A brick portal from a London house of the English Restoration period and a fireplace from the gallery of Northumberland house. European examples include a dormer window dated 1523–1535 from the chateau of Montal. There are several examples from Italian Renaissance buildings including, portals, fireplaces, balconies and a stone buffet that used to have a built-in fountain. The main architecture gallery has a series of pillars from various buildings and different periods, for example, a column from the Alhambra. Examples from Asia are in those galleries concerned with those countries, as well as models and photographs in the main architecture gallery.

In June 2022, RIBA announced it would be terminating its 20-year partnership with the V&A in 2027, "by mutual agreement", ending the permanent architecture gallery at the museum. Artefacts will be transferred back to the RIBA's existing collections, with some rehoused at the institute's headquarters at 66 Portland Place, set to become a new House of Architecture following a £20 million refurbishment.

Islamic art

The museum holds over 19,000 objects from the Islamic world, ranging from the early Islamic period (the 7th century) to the early 20th century. The Jameel Gallery of Islamic Art, opened in 2006, houses 400 objects from Spain, North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and Afghanistan. The centrepiece of the gallery is the Ardabil Carpet. Many examples of Qur'āns with exquisite calligraphy dating from various periods are on display. A 15th-century minbar from a Cairo mosque with ivory forming complex geometrical patterns inlaid in wood is one of the larger objects on display. Extensive examples of ceramics especially Iznik pottery, glasswork including 14th-century lamps from mosques and metalwork are on display. A 10th-century rock crystal ewer is considered a masterpiece of Islamic art. The collection of Middle Eastern carpets and Persian rugs is amongst the finest in the world, many were part of the Salting Bequest of 1909. Examples of tile work include a fireplace dated 1731 from Istanbul made of intricately decorated blue and white tiles. Turquoise tiles from the exterior of buildings in Samarkand are also displayed.

Asia

The V&A's Asia collection numbers more than 160,000 objects, one of the largest in existence. It has one of the world's most comprehensive and important collections of Chinese art whilst the collection of South Asian Art is the most important in the West. The museum's coverage includes pieces from South and South East Asia, Himalayan kingdoms, China, the Far East and the Islamic world.

South Asia

The museum's collections of South and South-East Asian art are the most comprehensive and important in the West comprising nearly 60,000 objects, including about 10,000 textiles and 6,000 paintings' The Jawaharlal Nehru gallery of Indian art, which opened in 1991, contains art from about 500 BC to the 19th century. There is an extensive collection of sculptures, mainly of a religious nature, Hindu, Buddhist and Jain. The gallery includes the art from the Mughal Empire and the Maratha Confederacy, including portraits of the emperors and other paintings and drawings, jade wine cups and gold spoons inset with emeralds, diamonds and rubies. Also from this period are parts of buildings such as a jaali and pillars. Clothing and textiles produced in India, from dyed cotton chintz, muslin to embroidery work using gold and silver thread, coloured sequins and beads are displayed, as are carpets from Agra and Lahore.

In 1879–80, the collections of the defunct East India Company's India Museum were transferred to the V&A and the British Museum. Items in the collection include Tipu's Tiger, an 18th-century automaton created for Tipu Sultan, the ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore and the Wine cup of Shah Jahan, the personal wine cup of a Mughal Emperor.

As of March 2026, the South Asia gallery at South Kensington is closed for a major refurbishment and is due to reopen in 2028.

East Asia

The Far Eastern collections include more than 70,000 works of art from China, Japan and Korea.

The T. T. Tsui Gallery of Chinese art opened in 1991, displaying a representative collection of the V&As approximately 16,000 objects from China, dating from the 4th millennium BC to the present day. Though the majority of artworks on display date from the Ming and Qing dynasties, there are objects dating from the Tang dynasty and earlier periods, among them a metre-high bronze head of the Buddha dated to about 750 AD and a 2000-year-old jade horse head from a burial. Other sculptures include life-size tomb guardians. Chinese decorative arts on display include Chinese lacquer, silk, Chinese porcelain, jade and cloisonné enamel. Two large ancestor portraits of a husband and wife painted in watercolour on silk date from the 18th century. There is a unique Chinese lacquerware table, made in the imperial workshops during the reign of the Xuande Emperor in the Ming dynasty. Examples of clothing are also displayed. One of the largest objects is a bed from the mid-17th century. The work of contemporary Chinese designers is also displayed.

The Toshiba gallery of Japanese art opened in December 1986. The majority of exhibits date from 1550 to 1900, but one of the oldest pieces displayed is the 13th-century sculpture of Amida Nyorai. Examples of classic Japanese armour from the mid-19th century, steel sword blades (Katana), Inrō, lacquerware including the Mazarin Chest dated c1640 is one of the finest surviving pieces from Kyoto, Imari porcelain, Netsuke, woodblock prints including the work of Andō Hiroshige, graphic works include printed books, as well as paintings, scrolls and screens, textiles and dress including kimono are some of the objects on display. Also displayed is Suzuki Chokichi's bronze incense burner (koro) dated 1875, at over 2.25 metres high and 1.25 metres in diameter it is also one of the largest examples made. The museum also holds some cloisonné pieces from the Japanese Ando Cloisonné Company production company.

Smaller galleries cover Korea and the Himalayas. Korean displays include green-glazed ceramics, silk embroideries from officials' robes and gleaming boxes inlaid with mother-of-pearl made between 500 AD and 2000. Himalayan works include important early Nepalese bronze sculptures, repoussé work and embroidery. Tibetan art from the 14th to the 19th century is represented by 14th- and 15th-century religious images in wood and bronze, scroll paintings and ritual objects. Art from Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka in gold, silver, bronze, stone, terracotta and ivory represents these rich and complex cultures, the displays span the 6th to 19th centuries. Refined Hindu and Buddhist sculptures reflect the influence of India; items on the show include betel-nut cutters, ivory combs and bronze palanquin hooks.

Books

The South Kensington building houses the National Art Library, a public library containing over 750,000 books, photographs, drawings, paintings and prints. It is one of the world's largest libraries dedicated to the study of fine and decorative arts. The library includes special collections covering illuminated manuscripts, rare books and artists' letters and archives. The library consists of three large public rooms, with around a hundred individual study desks.

One of the great treasures in the library is the Codex Forster, one of Leonardo da Vinci's note books. The Codex consists of three parchment-bound manuscripts, Forster I, Forster II, and Forster III, quite small in size, dated between 1490 and 1505. Their contents include a large collection of sketches and references to the equestrian sculpture commissioned by the Duke of Milan Ludovico Sforza to commemorate his father Francesco Sforza. These were bequeathed with over 18,000 books to the museum in 1876 by John Forster.

The Reverend Alexander Dyce donated over 14,000 books to the museum in 1869. His donation included early editions, in Greek and Latin, of the poets and playwrights Aeschylus, Aristotle, Homer, Livy, Ovid, Pindar, Sophocles and Virgil. More recent authors include Giovanni Boccaccio, Dante, Racine, Rabelais and Molière.

Illuminated manuscripts in the library dating from the 12th to 16th centuries include: a leaf from the Eadwine Psalter, Canterbury; Pocket Book of Hours, Reims; Missal from the Royal Basilica of Saint Denis, Paris; the Simon Marmion Book of Hours, Bruges; 1524 Charter illuminated by Lucas Horenbout, London; the Armagnac manuscript of the trial and rehabilitation of Joan of Arc, Rouen.

Victorian authors represented include Charles Dickens, by the manuscripts of most of his novels; Beatrix Potter, with the largest collection of her original manuscripts in the world and William Morris.

The National Art Library also includes a collection of comics and comic art. This collection include the Krazy Kat Arkive, comprising 4,200 comics, and the Rakoff Collection, comprising 17,000 pieces collected by the writer and editor, Ian Rakoff.

In the early 2000s the National Art Library merged with the Prints, Paintings and Drawings department to form the Word and Image Department. In 2007 the department began a large scale digitisation project, the Factory Project, to completely digitise the collection. The project began by taking digital photographs of each item to replace the collection of old black and white photos. Those new photographs will be accessible on-line. 15,000 images were taken during the first year of the project, including of drawings, watercolours, computer-generated art, photographs, posters and woodcuts. The next step of the project is to catalogue everything and audit the collection to ensure every item listed as being in the collection was physically found during the project. In addition items needing conservation were identified and treated.

British galleries

These fifteen galleries, which opened in November 2001, contain around 4,000 objects and are based around three major themes: "Style", "Who Led Taste" and "What Was New". The period covered is 1500 to 1900, with the galleries divided into three major subdivisions:

• Tudor and Stuart Britain, 1500–1714, covering the Renaissance, Elizabethan, Jacobean, Restoration and Baroque styles
• Georgian Britain, 1714–1837, covering Palladianism, Rococo, Chinoiserie, Neoclassicism, the Regency, the influence of Chinese, Indian and Egyptian styles, and the early Gothic Revival
• Victorian Britain, 1837–1901, covering the later phases of the Gothic Revival, French influences, Classical and Renaissance revivals, Aestheticism, Japanese style, the continuing influence of China, India, and the Islamic world, the Arts and Crafts movement and the Scottish School.

Also on display are works produced by European artists that was purchased or commissioned by British patrons, as well as imports from Asia, including porcelain, cloth and wallpaper. Designers and artists whose work is on display include Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Grinling Gibbons, Daniel Marot, Louis Laguerre, Antonio Verrio, Sir James Thornhill, William Kent, Robert Adam, Josiah Wedgwood, Matthew Boulton, Canova, Thomas Chippendale, Pugin, William Morris. Patrons who have influenced taste are also represented by works of art from their collections, these include: Horace Walpole (a major influence on the Gothic Revival), William Thomas Beckford and Thomas Hope.

The galleries showcase a number of complete and partial period rooms, from demolished buildings, including:

• The parlour from 2 Henrietta Street, London, dated 1727–1728, designed by James Gibbs
• The Norfolk House Music Room, St James Square, London, dated 1756, designed by Matthew Brettingham and Giovanni Battista Borra
• Part of a wall from the Glass Drawing-Room of Northumberland House, dated 1773–1775, designed by Robert Adam

Some of the more notable works displayed in the galleries include:

• Pietro Torrigiani's coloured terracotta bust of Henry VII, dated 1509–1511
• Henry VIII's writing desk, dated 1525, made from walnut and oak, lined with leather and painted and gilded with the king's coat of arms
• A spinet dated 1570–1580, made for Elizabeth I
• The Great Bed of Ware, dated 1590–1600, a large, elaborately carved four-poster bed with marquetry headboard
• Gianlorenzo Bernini's bust of Thomas Baker, from the 1630s
• 17th-century tapestries from the Sheldon and Mortlake Tapestry Works
• The wood relief of The Stoning of St Stephen, dated c. 1670, by Grinling Gibbons
• The Macclesfield Wine Set, dated 1719–1720, made by Anthony Nelme, the only complete set known to survive.
• The life-size sculpture of George Frederick Handel, dated 1738, by Louis-François Roubiliac
• Furniture by Thomas Chippendale and Robert Adam
• The sculpture of Bashaw, dated 1831–1834, by Matthew Cotes Wyatt
• Aesthetic and Arts & Crafts furniture by Edward William Godwin and Charles Rennie Mackintosh; and carpets and interior textiles by William Morris.

The galleries also link design to wider trends in British culture. For instance, design in the Tudor period was influenced by the spread of printed books and the work of European artists and craftsmen employed in Britain. In the Stuart period, increasing trade, especially with Asia, enabled wider access to luxuries like carpets, lacquered furniture, silks and porcelain. In the Georgian age there was an increasing emphasis on entertainment and leisure. For example, the increase in tea drinking led to the production of tea paraphernalia such as china and caddies. European styles are seen on the Grand Tour also influenced taste. As the Industrial Revolution took hold, the growth of mass production produced entrepreneurs such as Josiah Wedgwood, Matthew Boulton and Eleanor Coade. In the Victorian era new technology and machinery had a significant effect on manufacturing, and for the first time since the reformation, the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches had a major effect on art and design such as the Gothic Revival. There is a display of items purchased from the Great Exhibition. In the later 19th century, the increasing backlash against industrialisation, led by John Ruskin, contributed to the Arts and Crafts movement.

Ceramics

This is the largest and most comprehensive ceramics collection in the world, with over 80,000 objects. Every populated continent is represented. Much of the top floor of the South Kensington site is devoted to galleries of ceramics. These spaces include display cases with a representative selection and also massed "visible storage" displays of the reserve collection.

Well represented in the collection is Meissen porcelain, with examples displayed include the Meissen Vulture from 1731 and the Möllendorff Dinner Service of 1762. Ceramics from the Manufacture nationale de Sèvres are extensive, especially from the 18th and 19th centuries. The collection of 18th-century British porcelain is the largest and finest in the world. Examples from every factory are represented, the collections of Chelsea porcelain and Worcester porcelain being especially fine. All the major 19th-century British factories are also represented. The Salting Bequest in 1909 enriched the museum's stock of Chinese and Japanese ceramics and forms part of the finest collection of East Asian pottery and porcelain in the world, including Kakiemon ware.

Many famous potters, such as Josiah Wedgwood, William De Morgan and Bernard Leach as well as Mintons & Royal Doulton are represented in the collection. There is an extensive collection of Delftware produced in both Britain and Holland, which includes a c. 1695 flower pyramid over a metre in height. Bernard Palissy has several examples of his work in the collection including dishes, jugs and candlesticks. The largest objects in the collection are a series of elaborately ornamented ceramic stoves from the 16th and 17th centuries, made in Germany and Switzerland. There is an unrivalled collection of Italian maiolica and Spanish lustreware. The collection of Iznik pottery from Turkey is the largest in the world.

Glass

The glass collection covers 4000 years of glassmaking, and has over 6000 pieces from Africa, Britain, Europe, America and Asia. The earliest glassware on display comes from Ancient Egypt. Further displays feature glass from Ancient Rome plus Medieval and Renaissance Europe including both Venetian glass and Bohemian glass. More recent periods represented include Art Nouveau glass by Louis Comfort Tiffany and Émile Gallé and Art Deco works by René Lalique. There are many examples of crystal chandeliers, both English, displayed in the British galleries, and foreign – for example, a Venetian one attributed to Giuseppe Briati and dated to about 1750.

The stained glass collection is possibly the finest in the world, covering the medieval to modern periods, and covering Europe as well as Britain. Several examples of English 16th-century heraldic glass is displayed in the British Galleries. Many well-known designers of stained glass are represented in the collection including, from the 19th century: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris. There is also an example of Frank Lloyd Wright's work in the collection. Notable designers of the 20th-century represented include Harry Clarke, John Piper, Patrick Reyntiens, Veronica Whall and Brian Clarke.

The main glass gallery at South Kensington was redesigned in 1994, the glass balustrade on the staircase and mezzanine are the work of Danny Lane, the gallery covering contemporary glass opened in 2004 and the sacred silver and stained-glass gallery in 2005. In this latter gallery stained glass is displayed alongside silverware from the 12th century to the present. Stained glass, dated 1243–1248, from the Sainte-Chapelle, is displayed in the Medieval & Renaissance galleries, where the important 13th-century glass beaker known as the Luck of Edenhall is also on display.

Prints and drawings

Prints and drawings from the over 750,000 works in the collection can be seen on request at the print room, the "Prints and Drawings study Room"; booking an appointment is necessary. The collection of drawings includes over 10,000 British and 2,000 old master works, including works by: Dürer, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, Bernardo Buontalenti, Rembrandt, Antonio Verrio, Paul Sandby, John Russell, Angelica Kauffman, John Flaxman, Hugh Douglas Hamilton, Thomas Rowlandson, William Kilburn, Thomas Girtin, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, David Wilkie, John Martin, Samuel Palmer, Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, Lord Leighton, Sir Samuel Luke Fildes and Aubrey Beardsley. Modern British artists represented in the collection include: Paul Nash, Percy Wyndham Lewis, Eric Gill, Stanley Spencer, John Piper, Robert Priseman, Graham Sutherland, Lucian Freud and David Hockney.

The print collection has more than 500,000 objects, covering: posters, greetings cards, bookplates, as well as a comprehensive collection of old master prints from the Renaissance to the present, including works by Rembrandt, William Hogarth, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Canaletto, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Henri Matisse and Sir William Nicholson.

Furniture

In November 2012, the museum opened its first gallery to be exclusively dedicated to furniture. Prior to this, furniture had been exhibited as part of a greater period context, rather than in isolation to showcase its design and construction merits. Among the designers showcased in the new gallery were Ron Arad, John Henry Belter, Joe Colombo, Eileen Gray, Grete Jalk, Verner Panton, Pierre Paulin, Thonet and Frank Lloyd Wright.

The furniture collection, while covering Europe and America from the Middle Ages to the present, is predominantly British, dating between 1700 and 1900. Many of the finest examples are displayed in the British Galleries, including pieces by Chippendale, Adam, Morris and Mackintosh. One of the oldest objects is a chair leg from Middle Egypt dated to 200-395AD.

The Furniture and Woodwork collection also includes complete rooms, musical instruments and clocks. Among the rooms owned by the museum are the Boudoir of Madame de Sévilly (Paris, 1781–82) by Claude Nicolas Ledoux, with painted panelling by Jean Simeon Rousseau de la Rottière. Frank Lloyd Wright's Kaufmann Office, designed and built between 1934 and 1937 for the owner of a Pittsburgh department store, is now displayed in the V&A East Storehouse

The collection includes pieces by William Kent, Henry Flitcroft, Matthias Lock, James Stuart, William Chambers, John Gillow, James Wyatt, Thomas Hopper, Charles Heathcote Tatham, Pugin, William Burges, Charles Voysey, Charles Robert Ashbee, Baillie Scott, Edwin Lutyens, Edward Maufe, Wells Coates and Robin Day. The museum also hosts the national collection of wallpaper, which is looked after by the Prints, Drawings and Paintings department.

The Soulages collection of Italian and French Renaissance objects was acquired between 1859 and 1865, and includes several cassone. The John Jones Collection of French 18th-century art and furnishings was left to the museum in the Jones Bequest of 1882, then valued at £250,000. One of the most important pieces in this collection is a marquetry commode by the ébéniste Jean Henri Riesener dated c1780. Other signed pieces of furniture in the collection include a bureau by Jean-François Oeben, a pair of pedestals with inlaid brass work by André Charles Boulle, a commode by Bernard Vanrisamburgh and a work-table by Martin Carlin. Other 18th-century ébénistes represented in the museum collection include Adam Weisweiler, David Roentgen, Gilles Joubert and Pierre Langlois. In 1901, Sir George Donaldson donated several pieces of art Nouveau furniture to the museum, which he had acquired the previous year at the Paris Exposition Universelle. This was criticised at the time, with the result that the museum ceased to collect contemporary pieces and did not do so again until the 1960s. In 1986 the Lady Abingdon collection of French Empire furniture was bequeathed by Mrs T. R. P. Hole.

There are a set of inlaid doors, dated 1580 from Antwerp City Hall, attributed to Hans Vredeman de Vries. One of the finest pieces of continental furniture in the collection is the Rococo Augustus Rex Bureau Cabinet dated c1750 from Germany, with especially fine marquetry and ormolu mounts. One of the grandest pieces of 19th-century furniture is the highly elaborate French Cabinet dated 1861–1867 made by M. Fourdinois, made from ebony inlaid with box, lime, holly, pear, walnut and mahogany woods as well as marble with gilded carvings. Furniture designed by Ernest Gimson, Edward William Godwin, Charles Voysey, Adolf Loos and Otto Wagner are among the late 19th-century and early 20th-century examples in the collection. The work of modernists in the collection include Le Corbusier, Marcel Breuer, Charles and Ray Eames and Giò Ponti.

One of the oldest clocks in the collection is an astronomical clock of 1588 by Francis Nowe. One of the largest is James Markwick the younger's longcase clock of 1725, nearly 3 metres in height and japanned. Other clockmakers with work in the collection include: Thomas Tompion, Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy, John Ellicott and William Carpenter.

Jewellery

The museum's jewellery collection, containing over 6000 pieces is one of the finest and most comprehensive collections of jewellery in the world and includes works dating from Ancient Egypt to the present day. The museum owns pieces by renowned jewellers Cartier, Jean Schlumberger, Peter Carl Fabergé, Andrew Grima, Hemmerle and René Lalique. Other items in the collection include diamond dress ornaments made for Catherine the Great, bracelet clasps once belonging to Marie Antoinette, and the Beauharnais emerald necklace presented by Napoleon to his adopted daughter Hortense de Beauharnais in 1806. The museum also collects international modern jewellery by designers such as Gijs Bakker, Onno Boekhoudt and Wendy Ramshaw, and African and Asian traditional jewellery. Major bequests include Reverend Chauncy Hare Townshend's collection of 154 gems bequeathed in 1869, Lady Cory's 1951 gift of major diamond jewellery from the 18th and 19th centuries, and jewellery scholar Dame Joan Evans' 1977 gift of more than 800 jewels dating from the Middle Ages to the early 19th century. A new jewellery gallery, funded by William and Judith Bollinger, opened on 24 May 2008.

Metalwork

This collection of more than 45,000 objects covers decorative ironwork, both wrought and cast, bronze, silverware, arms and armour, pewter, brassware and enamels (including many examples Limoges enamel). The main iron work gallery was redesigned in 1995.

There are over 10,000 objects made from silver or gold in the collection, the display (about 15 percent of the collection) is divided into secular and sacred covering both Christian (Roman Catholic, Anglican and Greek Orthodox) and Jewish liturgical vessels and other works. The main silver gallery is divided into these areas: British silver pre-1800; British silver 1800 to 1900; modernist to contemporary silver; European silver. The collection includes the earliest known piece of English silver with a dated hallmark, a silver gilt beaker dated 1496–1497.

Silversmiths whose work is represented in the collection include Paul Storr (whose Castlereagh Inkstand, dated 1817–1819, is one of his finest works) and Paul de Lamerie.

The main iron work gallery covers European wrought and cast iron from the medieval period to the early 20th century. The master of wrought ironwork Jean Tijou is represented by both examples of his work and designs on paper. One of the largest objects is the Hereford Screen, weighing nearly 8 tonnes, 10.5 metres high and 11 metres wide, designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott in 1862 for the chancel in Hereford Cathedral, from which it was removed in 1967. It was made by Skidmore & Company. Its structure of timber and cast iron is embellished with wrought iron, burnished brass and copper. Much of the copper and ironwork is painted in a wide range of colours. The arches and columns are decorated with polished quartz and panels of mosaic.

One of the rarest works in the collection is the 58 cm-high Gloucester Candlestick, dated to c1110, made from gilt bronze; with highly elaborate and intricate intertwining branches containing small figures and inscriptions, it is a tour de force of bronze casting. Also of importance is the Becket Casket dated c1180 to contain relics of St Thomas Becket, made from gilt copper, with enamelled scenes of the saint's martyrdom. Another highlight is the 1351 Reichenau Crozier. The Burghley Nef, a salt-cellar, French, dated 1527–1528, uses a nautilus shell to form the hull of a vessel, which rests on the tail of a parcelgilt mermaid, who rests on a hexagonal gilt plinth on six claw-and-ball feet. Both masts have main and top-sails, and battlemented fighting-tops are made from gold. These items are displayed in the new Medieval & Renaissance galleries.

Musical instruments

Musical instruments are classified as furniture by the museum, although Asian instruments are held by their relevant departments.

Among the more important instruments owned by the museum are a violin by Antonio Stradivari dated 1699, an oboe that belonged to Gioachino Rossini, and a jewelled spinet dated 1571 made by Annibale Rossi. The collection also includes a c. 1570 virginal said to have belonged to Elizabeth I, and late 19th-century pianos designed by Edward Burne-Jones, and Baillie Scott.

The Musical Instruments gallery closed on 25 February 2010, a decision that was highly controversial. An online petition of over 5,100 names on the Parliamentary website led to Chris Smith asking in Parliament about the future of the collection. The answer, from Bryan Davies, was that the museum intended to preserve and care for the collection and keep it available to the public, with objects being redistributed to the British Galleries, the Medieval & Renaissance Galleries, and the planned new galleries for Furniture and Europe 1600–1800, and that the Horniman Museum and other institutions were possible candidates for loans of material to ensure that the instruments remained publicly viewable. The Horniman went on to host a joint exhibition with the V&A of musical instruments, and has the loan of 35 instruments from the museum.

Paintings and miniatures

The collection includes about 1130 British and 650 European oil paintings, 6800 British watercolours, pastels and 2000 miniatures, for which the museum holds the national collection. Also on loan to the museum, from His Majesty the King Charles III, are the Raphael Cartoons: the seven surviving (there were ten) full-scale designs for tapestries in the Sistine Chapel, of the lives of Peter and Paul from the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. There is also on display a fresco by Pietro Perugino, dated 1522, from the church of Castello at Fontignano (Perugia) which is amongst the painter's last works. One of the largest objects in the collection is the Spanish retable of St George, c. 1400, 670 x 486 cm, in tempera on wood, consisting of numerous scenes and painted by Andrés Marzal De Sax in Valencia.

19th-century British artists are well represented. John Constable and J. M. W. Turner are represented by oil paintings, watercolours and drawings. One of the most unusual objects on display is Thomas Gainsborough's experimental showbox with its back-lit landscapes, which he painted on glass, which allowed them to be changed like slides. Other landscape painters with works on display include Philip James de Loutherbourg, Peter De Wint and John Ward.

In 1857 John Sheepshanks donated 233 paintings, mainly by contemporary British artists, and a similar number of drawings to the museum with the intention of forming "A National Gallery of British Art", a role since taken on by Tate Britain; artists represented are William Blake, James Barry, Henry Fuseli, Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, Sir David Wilkie, William Mulready, William Powell Frith, Millais and Hippolyte Delaroche. Although some of Constable's works came to the museum with the Sheepshanks bequest, the majority of the artist's works were donated by his daughter Isabel in 1888, including the large number of sketches in oil, the most significant being the 1821 full size oil sketch for The Hay Wain. Other artists with works in the collection include: Bernardino Fungai, Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, Domenico di Pace Beccafumi, Fioravante Ferramola, Jan Brueghel the Elder, Anthony van Dyck, Ludovico Carracci, Antonio Verrio, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Domenico Tiepolo, Canaletto, Francis Hayman, Pompeo Batoni, Benjamin West, Richard Wilson, William Etty, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Francis Danby, Richard Parkes Bonington and Alphonse Legros.

Richard Ellison's collection of 100 British watercolours was given by his widow in 1860 and 1873 'to promote the foundation of the National Collection of Water-Color Paintings'. Over 500 British and European oil paintings, watercolours and miniatures and 3000 drawings and prints were bequeathed in 1868–1869 by the clergymen Chauncey Hare Townshend and Alexander Dyce.

Several French paintings entered the collection as part of the 260 paintings and miniatures (not all the works were French, for example Carlo Crivelli's Virgin and Child) that formed part of the Jones Bequest of 1882 and are displayed in the galleries of continental art 1600–1800. These include the portrait of François, Duc d'Alençon by François Clouet, works by Gaspard Dughet and by François Boucher including his portrait of Madame de Pompadour dated 1758, Jean François de Troy, Jean-Baptiste Pater and their contemporaries.

Another major Victorian benefactor was Constantine Alexander Ionides, who left 82 oil paintings to the museum in 1901, including works by Botticelli, Tintoretto, Adriaen Brouwer, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Gustave Courbet, Eugène Delacroix, Théodore Rousseau, Edgar Degas, Jean-François Millet, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones, plus watercolours and over a thousand drawings and prints

The Salting Bequest of 1909 included, among other works, watercolours by J. M. W. Turner. Other watercolourists include: William Gilpin, Thomas Rowlandson, William Blake, John Sell Cotman, Paul Sandby, William Mulready, Edward Lear, James Abbott McNeill Whistler and Paul Cézanne.

There is a copy of Raphael's The School of Athens over 4 metres by 8 metres in size, dated 1755 by Anton Raphael Mengs on display in the eastern Cast Court.

Miniaturists represented in the collection include Jean Bourdichon, Hans Holbein the Younger, Nicholas Hilliard, Isaac Oliver, Peter Oliver, Jean Petitot, Alexander Cooper, Samuel Cooper, Thomas Flatman, Rosalba Carriera, Christian Friedrich Zincke, George Engleheart, John Smart, Richard Cosway and William Charles Ross.

Photography

The collection contains more than 500,000 images dating from the advent of photography, the oldest image dating from 1839. The gallery displays a series of changing exhibits and closes between exhibitions to allow full re-display to take place. In 1858, it presented the world's first international photographic exhibition.

The collection includes the work of many photographers from Fox Talbot, Julia Margaret Cameron, Viscountess Clementina Hawarden, Gustave Le Gray, Benjamin Brecknell Turner, Frederick Hollyer, Samuel Bourne, Roger Fenton, Man Ray, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Ilse Bing, Bill Brandt, Cecil Beaton (there are more than 8000 of his negatives), Don McCullin, David Bailey, Jim Lee and Helen Chadwick to the present day.

One of the more unusual collections is that of Eadweard Muybridge's photographs of Animal Locomotion of 1887, this consists of 781 plates. These sequences of photographs taken a fraction of a second apart capture images of different animals and humans performing various actions. There are several of John Thomson's 1876-7 images of Street Life in London in the collection. The museum also holds James Lafayette's society portraits, a collection of more than 600 photographs dating from the late 19th to early 20th centuries and portraying a wide range of society figures of the period, including Indian maharajas, Ethiopian rulers and photographs recording the guests at the famous fancy-dress ball held at Devonshire House in 1897 to celebrate Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee.

In 2003 and 2007, Curtis Moffat's extensive archive was donated to the museum. He created dynamic abstract photographs, innovative colour still-lives and glamorous society portraits during the 1920s and 1930s. He was also a pivotal figure in Modernist interior design. In Paris during the 1920s, Moffat collaborated with Man Ray, producing portraits and abstract photograms or "rayographs".

Sculpture

The sculpture collection at the V&A is the most comprehensive holding of post-classical European sculpture in the world. There are approximately 22,000 objects in the collection dating from about 400AD to 1914 and includes Byzantine and Anglo-Saxon ivory sculptures, British, French and Spanish medieval statues and carvings and works from the Renaissance, Baroque, Neo-Classical, Victorian and Art Nouveau periods. All uses of sculpture are represented, from tomb and memorial, to portrait, allegorical, religious, mythical, statues for gardens including fountains, as well as architectural decorations. Materials used include, marble, alabaster, stone, terracotta, wood (history of wood carving), ivory, gesso, plaster, bronze, lead and ceramics.

The collection of Italian sculpture (both original and in cast form) is unequalled outside of Italy. It includes Canova's The Three Graces, which the museum jointly owns with National Galleries of Scotland. Italian sculptors whose work is held by the museum include: Bartolomeo Bon, Bartolomeo Bellano, Luca della Robbia, Giovanni Pisano, Donatello, Agostino di Duccio, Andrea Riccio, Antonio Rossellino, Andrea del Verrocchio, Antonio Lombardo, Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi, Andrea della Robbia, Michelozzo di Bartolomeo, Michelangelo (represented by a freehand wax model and casts of his most famous sculptures), Jacopo Sansovino, Alessandro Algardi, Antonio Calcagni, Benvenuto Cellini (Medusa's head dated c. 1547), Agostino Busti, Bartolomeo Ammannati, Giacomo della Porta, Giambologna (Samson Slaying a Philistine c. 1562, his finest work outside Italy), Bernini (Neptune and Triton c. 1622–3), Giovanni Battista Foggini, Vincenzo Foggini (Samson and the Philistines), Massimiliano Soldani Benzi, Antonio Corradini, Andrea Brustolon, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Innocenzo Spinazzi, Canova, Carlo Marochetti and Raffaelle Monti.

An unusual sculpture is the ancient Roman statue of Narcissus restored by Valerio Cioli c. 1564 with plaster. There are several small scale bronzes by Donatello such as The Ascension with Christ giving the Keys to St Peter and Lamentation of Christ, Alessandro Vittoria, Tiziano Aspetti and Francesco Fanelli in the collection. The largest work from Italy is the Chancel Chapel from Santa Chiara Florence dated 1493–1500, designed by Giuliano da Sangallo it is 11.1 metres in height by 5.4 metres square, it includes a grand sculpted tabernacle by Antonio Rossellino and coloured terracotta decoration.

Rodin is represented by more than 20 works in the museum collection, making it one of the largest collections of the sculptor's work outside France; these were given to the museum by the sculptor in 1914, as acknowledgement of Britain's support of France in the First World War, although the statue of St John the Baptist had been purchased in 1902 by public subscription. Other French sculptors with work in the collection are Hubert Le Sueur, François Girardon, Michel Clodion, Jean-Antoine Houdon, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux and Jules Dalou.

There are also several Renaissance works by Northern European sculptors in the collection including work by: Veit Stoss, Tilman Riemenschneider, Hendrick de Keyser, Hans Daucher and Peter Flötner. Baroque works from the same area include the work of Adriaen de Vries and Sébastien Slodtz. The Spanish sculptors with work in the collection include Alonso Berruguete and Luisa Roldán represented by her Virgin and Child with St Diego of Alcala c. 1695.

Sculptors, both British and European, who were based in Britain and whose work is in the collection include Nicholas Stone, Caius Gabriel Cibber, Grinling Gibbons, John Michael Rysbrack, Louis-François Roubiliac, Peter Scheemakers, Sir Henry Cheere, Agostino Carlini, Thomas Banks, Joseph Nollekens, Joseph Wilton, John Flaxman, Sir Francis Chantrey, John Gibson, Edward Hodges Baily, Lord Leighton, Alfred Stevens, Thomas Brock, Alfred Gilbert, George Frampton and Eric Gill. A sample of some of these sculptors' work is on display in the British Galleries.

In 2006 it was decided to extend the chronology of the works on display up to 1950; this has involved loans by other museums, including Tate Britain, of works by Henry Moore, Jacob Epstein and their contemporaries. Works dated between 1600 and 1950 by British sculptors, works by continental sculptors who worked in Britain and works bought by British patrons from the continental sculptors are arranged by theme, tomb sculpture, portraiture, garden sculpture and mythology in the sculpture galleries south of the garden.

Smaller-scale works are displayed in the Gilbert Bayes gallery, covering medieval especially English alabaster sculpture, bronzes, wooden sculptures and has demonstrations of various techniques such as bronze casting using lost-wax casting.

The majority of the Medieval and Renaissance sculpture is displayed in the Medieval and Renaissance galleries which opened in December 2009.

Textiles

The collection of textiles consists of more than 53,000 items, mainly western European though all populated continents are represented, dating from the 1st century AD to the present. This is the largest such collection in the world. Techniques represented include weaving, printing, quilting embroidery, lace, tapestry and carpets. Represented in the collection are early silks from the Near East, lace, European tapestries and English medieval church embroidery.

The tapestry collection includes a fragment of the Cloth of St Gereon, the oldest known surviving European tapestry. A highlight of the collection is the four Devonshire Hunting Tapestries, very rare 15th-century tapestries, woven in the Netherlands, depicting the hunting of various animals; not just their age but their size make these unique. Both of the major English centres of tapestry weaving of the 16th and 17th centuries respectively, Sheldon & Mortlake are represented in the collection by several examples. Also included are tapestries from John Vanderbank's workshop which was the leading English tapestry manufactory in the late 17th century and early 18th century. Some of the finest tapestries are examples from the Gobelins Manufactory, including a set of 'Jason and the Argonauts' dating from the 1750s. Other continental centres of tapestry weaving with work in the collection include Brussels, Tournai, Beauvais, Strasbourg and Florence.

One of the earliest surviving examples of European quilting, the late 14th-century Sicilian Tristan Quilt, is also in the collection which also includes examples of various textiles designed by William Morris, including, embroidery, woven fabrics, tapestries (including The Forest tapestry of 1887), rugs and carpets, as well as pattern books and paper designs. The art deco period is covered by rugs and fabrics designed by Marion Dorn and a rug designed by Serge Chermayeff.

The collection also includes the Oxburgh Hangings, which were made by Mary, Queen of Scots and Bess of Hardwick. The Oxburgh Hangings are on permanent long-term loan at Oxburgh Hall.

Among the textiles from Asia are the early silk fragments collected by Aurel Stein in northwest China.

Theatre and performance

The V&A holds the national collection of performing arts in the UK, including drama, dance, opera, circus, puppetry, comedy, musical theatre, costume, set design, pantomime, popular music and other forms of live entertainment.

The Theatre & Performance collections were founded in the 1920s when a private collector, Gabrielle Enthoven, donated her collection of theatrical memorabilia to the V&A. In 1974 two further independent collections were compiled to form a comprehensive performing arts collection. The collections were displayed at the Theatre Museum, which operated in Covent Garden until closing in 2007. The Theatre & Performance galleries opened at South Kensington in March 2009 tracing the production process of performance and include a temporary exhibition space. Objects displayed include costumes, set models, wigs, prompt books and posters.

The department holds significant archives documenting current practice and the history of performing arts. These include the English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and the design collection of the Arts Council. Notable personal archives include those of Vivien Leigh, Peter Brook, Henry Irving and Ivor Novello.

Rock and pop are represented with the Harry Hammond photographic collection and the Jamie Reid archive documenting punk. Costumes include those worn by John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Elton John, Adam Ant, Chris Martin, Iggy Pop, Prince, Shirley Bassey and Roger Daltrey's Woodstock outfit. The Glastonbury Festival archive and the David Bowie archive are in the V&A East Storehouse.

Fashion

The costume collection is the most comprehensive in Britain, containing over 14,000 outfits plus accessories, dating from 1600 to the present. Some of the oldest works in the collection are medieval vestments, especially Opus Anglicanum. One of the most important pieces in the collection is the wedding suit of James II of England, which is displayed in the British Galleries. As everyday clothing from previous eras has not generally survived, the collection is dominated by fashionable clothes made for special occasions. In 1913 the V&A received the Talbot Hughes collection containing 1,442 costumes and items as a gift from Harrods following its display at the department store.

In 1971, Cecil Beaton curated an exhibition of 1,200 20th-century high-fashion garments and accessories. These included gowns worn by leading socialites such as Patricia Lopez-Willshaw, Gloria Guinness and Lee Radziwill, and the actors Audrey Hepburn and Ruth Ford. After the exhibition, Beaton donated most of the exhibits to the museum in the names of their former owners.

In 1999, V&A began a series of live catwalk events at the museum titled Fashion in Motion featuring pieces from historically significant fashion collections. The first show featured Alexander McQueen in June 1999. Since then, the museum has hosted recreations of various designer shows every year including Anna Sui, Tristan Webber, Elspeth Gibson, Chunghie Lee, Jean Paul Gaultier, Missoni, Gianfranco Ferré, Christian Lacroix, Kenzo and Kansai Yamamoto amongst others.

In 2002, the museum acquired the Costiff collection of 178 Vivienne Westwood costumes. Other famous designers with work in the collection include Coco Chanel, Hubert de Givenchy, Christian Dior, Cristóbal Balenciaga, Yves Saint Laurent, Guy Laroche, Irene Galitzine, Mila Schön, Valentino Garavani, Norman Norell, Norman Hartnell, Zandra Rhodes, Hardy Amies, Mary Quant, Christian Lacroix, Jean Muir and Pierre Cardin. The museum continues to acquire examples of modern fashion to add to the collection.

The V&A runs an ongoing textile and dress conservation programme. For example, in 2008, an important but heavily soiled, distorted and water-damaged 1954 Dior outfit called 'Zemire' was restored to displayable condition for the Golden Age of Couture exhibition.

The museum has a large collection of shoes; around 2000 pairs from different cultures around the world. The collection shows the chronological progression of shoe height, heel shape and materials, revealing just how many styles we consider to be modern have been in and out of fashion across the centuries.

Departments

Education

The education department has wide-ranging responsibilities. It provides information for the casual visitor as well as for school groups, including integrating learning in the museum with the National Curriculum; it provides research facilities for students at degree level and beyond, with information and access to the collections. It also oversees the content of the museum's website in addition to publishing books and papers on the collections, research and other aspects of the museum.

Several areas of the collection have dedicated study rooms, these allow access to objects in the collection that are not currently on display, but in some cases require an appointment to be made.

V&A Publishing, within the education department, works to raise funds for the museum by publishing around 30 books and digital items each year. The company has around 180 books in print.

Research and conservation

The museum's research work includes:

• identification and interpretation of individual objects;
• individual studies and systematic research to develop the public understanding of the art and artefacts of different cultures;
• visitor research and evaluation to discover the needs of visitors and their experiences of the museum.

Since 1990, the museum has published research reports on all areas of the collection.

Conservation is responsible for the long-term preservation of the collections, and covers all the collections held by the V&A. Areas covered by the conservator's work include

• "preventive" conservation which include performing surveys, assessments and providing advice on the handling of items, correct packaging, mounting and handling procedures during movement and display to reduce risk of damaging objects.
• "interventive" conservation, this includes: cleaning and strengthening fragile objects, reveal original surface decoration and restore shape. Interventive treatment makes an object more stable and more attractive and comprehensible to the viewer when on display.

Other activities include controlling the museum environment (for example, temperature and light) and preventing pests (primarily insects) from damaging artefacts.

Partnerships

The V&A works with a small number of partner organisations in Sheffield, Dundee and Blackpool to provide a regional presence.

Plans for a new gallery in Blackpool were once considered. This follows earlier plans to move the theatre collection to a new £60m museum in Blackpool, which failed due to lack of funding. The V&A exhibits twice a year at the Millennium Galleries in partnership with Museums Sheffield.

The V&A is a key hub for the London Design Festival, hosting festival reflated exhibitions and events and has been described as the "true epicentre" of the festival itself.

The V&A is one of 17 museums across Europe and the Mediterranean participating in a project called Discover Islamic Art. Developed by the Brussels-based consortium Museum With No Frontiers, this online "virtual museum" brings together more than 1200 works of Islamic art and architecture into a single database.

Prizes and residencies

Jameel Prize

In 2009, the V&A established the Jameel Prize, for "contemporary art and design inspired by Islamic tradition" in partnership with Art Jameel.

In 2022, a theme for the prize was introduced by co-curators of the prize Rachel Dedman and Tim Stanley, with the first theme Poetry to Politics. In the same year, open submissions were allowed for the first time, having previously been only open by a network of global nominators.

Previous winners are:

• 2009: Afruz Amighi
• 2011: Rachid Koraïchi
• 2013: Dice Kayek
• 2016: Ghulam Mohammad
• 2018: Mehdi Moutashar and Marina Tabassum (joint)
• 2021: Ajlan Gharem
• 2024: Ohida Khandakar

Temporary exhibitions

The V&A has several dedicated galleries for hosting temporary exhibitions plus both the Ceramics Galleries and the Photography Centre have rooms for temporary exhibitions. A typical year will see more than a dozen different such exhibitions being staged. Notable examples include:

• Britain Can Make It, 1946
• Weaving for Walls. 1965-7
• Cinema India: The Art of Bollywood, 2002
• Hats: An Anthology, 2009
• Power of Making, 2011
• David Bowie Is, 2013
• Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, 2015, The V&A ranked second in London's top paid exhibitions in 2015 with this record-breaking show, which received 3,472 visitors in one day.
• Video games:Design/Play/Disrupt, 2018
• Food: Bigger Than the Plate, 2019
• Concealed Histories: Uncovering the Story of Nazi Looting, 2019 – 2021
• Taylor Swift Songbook Trail, 2024, Costumes worn by Taylor Swift during her career
• Fragile Beauty: Photographs from the Sir Elton John and David Furnish Collection, 2024
• Jewish Culture Month: Montefiore to Mentmore, Silver to Scandal, 2026

The Madejski Garden is also used for temporary exhibitions of works by artists and designers such as Georg Baselitz, Jeff Koons, Yung Ho Chang, United Visual Artists and the Campana brothers.

Each year, the museum commissions an artist or designer to create a Christmas tree for the Cromwell Road entrance rotunda. Past invitees have included Anna Lomax, Es Devlin, Kaffe Fassett, Gareth Pugh, Alexander McQueen with Tord Boontje, Matthew Williamson and Jasper Conran.

Media

Starting in March 2020 BBC Two transmitted a series of six programmes depicting the back-stage work of the curators and restorers of the museum, entitled Secrets of the Museum.

The museum has featured in several films. These include The Ipcress File (1965), To Sir, with Love (1967), The Portrait of a Lady (1996) Hugo (2011), Trance (2013) and Red, White & Royal Blue (2023). The museum's former stores at Blythe House appeared in Tinker Tailor, Soldier Spy (2011).