METALWORK
Past Exhibitions & Displays
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The Bishopsland Fellowship 1979-2009
24 July-19 September 2009
Room 66
Free Admission
This display spans the development of contemporary silver design over the last 30 years, connected by the Bishopsland Fellowship, based on the training workshop in South Oxfordshire where recent graduates spend a cloistered year learning their trade and acquiring the skills of professional practice. -
Fragments
10 November 2008 - 8 November 2009
Gallery 116, Case 5
Free Admission
The metalwork collection includes many small fragments of objects that are rarely displayed. These are often beautiful, intriguing and revealing. On first seeing them, we might wonder what they are. By examining a detail we can understand more about the whole object - what it is made of, and how it was made. -
The Poor Clare's Reliquary
14 July 2008 - 30 September 2009
Gallery 83, Case 9
Free Admission
This is the story of a precious vessel that has recently been lent to the V&A by the Monastery of Poor Clares in Hereford. We are still unearthing its exciting history and debating its changing use over time. Scholars are divided over whether it was made as a reliquary or a salt cellar. -
The Art of Drinking
Drink has stimulated a rich material culture. Specific situations and drinks require particular vessels; from stoneware beer mugs to jade cups and silver goblets. The objects in this display reflect wealth and social class as well as local custom and tradition.
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Elizabethan Flagons from St Mary Woolnoth
A pair of beautifully engraved flagons were acquired for the medieval church of St Mary Woolnoth in 1697. One of the flagons was loaned to Christ Church Cathedral in Victoria, British Columbia in the 1930s and this display celebrated its return after seventy years abroad.
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21st Century Silversmiths
The 21st Century Silversmiths display shows a sampling of work carried out by today's working silversmiths. Most of the examples here are drawn from the V&A's continually expanding collection of contemporary metalwork.
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Paul de Lamerie Silver
Paul de Lamerie (1688-1751) was the greatest silversmith working in England in the 18th century. His success lay in his exceptional powers of invention and creation, but also in his ability as a businessman, retailing some astonishingly spectacular silverware from his own workshop and also using the best external suppliers in the trade.
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The Audrey Love Collection
For the first time in 200 years, major pieces from the most spectacular and stylistically adventurous table garniture of the 19th century were shown together in the Silver Galleries in 2003. The Audrey Love Collection was reunited with a candelabrum given to the Victoria and Albert Museum by Corinne Whiteley and a cistern on loan from the Museum of London.