Museums and Institutions

The long-awaited opening of the new British Galleries at the V&A last week has restored to the museum and its visitors many of its finest and best loved exhibits in an appropriate yet innovative environment.

PICTURED right is just one of a number of rare and important artefacts whose sale to the nation has just been negotiated by Christie’s.The 14th century Norwegian carved ivory crozier head, which has been sold in lieu of inheritance tax and will go to the V&A, is an extremely rare example of late medieval Scandinavian carved ivory.

Figured in Marble: The Making and Viewing of 18th-Century Sculpture by Malcolm Baker, published by V&A Publications. ISBN 1851772987 £50 hb

Treasury of the World: Jewelled Arts of India in the Age of the Mughals. The al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait National Museum, by Manual Keene, published by the British Museum ISBN 0500976082. £18.95 pb.

Hiroshige Fan Prints by Rupert Faulkner, published by V&A Publications. ISBN 01851773320. £30 hb.

UK: A TEMPORARY export ban on an important reliquary from the Wernher Collection has allowed the V&A to acquire it with backing from the Lottery and the National Arts Collection Fund.

UK: IT HAS just been announced exclusively to the Antiques Trade Gazette that the Heberden Coin Room at the Ashmolean Museum, which holds one of the most comprehensive collections of coins and medals in the world, has received a very substantial grant to update and rewrite the history of Greek coins from their invention (c.630BC) to Alexander the Great (d.323BC).

Historical Fashion in Detail: The 17th and 18th Centuries by Avril Hart and Susan North, published by V&A Publications. ISBN 18517772588 £19.95 pb

After more than 30 years in storage, the Hereford Screen, one of the metalwork masterpieces of the Victorian age, has been conserved and returned to its former glory. Richly intricate and colourful, this Gothic Revival choir screen was made for Hereford Cathedral and will be unveiled at the V&A on Thursday, May 24.

UK: An ancient Celtic gold ornament provided the high point of Christie’s South Kensington’s Antiquities sale last week when it was purchased for £1m by London’s British Museum, to whom it was on loan from 1993 to 2000.

UK: THE Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge is celebrating a £425,000 Lottery windfall that has helped it acquire a stunning coin collection.

Letters, manuscripts and photographs from many of Britain’s most celebrated artists are to form a new art research library that will be open to the public at Tate Britain.

Furniture from British India and Ceylon: A Catalogue of the Collections in the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Peabody Essex Museum, by Amin Jaffer

UK: THE V&A have announced that they are to open their new British Galleries 1500-1900 on November 22.

TO commemorate the centenary of Queen Victoria’s death the V&A’s major spring exhibition is Inventing New Britain: The Victorian Vision, from April 5 to July 29. Co-curated by Paul Atterbury, the exhibition takes as its themes how a modern Britain emerged during the Queen’s all-powerful reign, and the way in which the Victorians have shaped our lives. Three books have been published by V&A Publications to accompany the exhibition.

LONDON: DESPITE there being no official announcement from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the papers have been full of the news that Mark Jones is to be the new director of the Victoria & Albert Museum.

THE Art-Law Centre of Switzerland is holding an international symposium, entitled Claims for the Restitution of Looted Art, at the Museum of Art and History in Geneva on November 10.

UK: THE Saatchi Gallery is to distribute 39 works of Contemporary Art by British artists among seven regional galleries and museums.

AS THE Tour de France came to an end, this 1870 Eugène Meyer de Paris Vélocipède sold on its top estimate for £26,000 (plus 15 per cent buyer’s premium) at Brooks’ Summer Vintage sale at the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu on July 27.

THE second week of London’s prestige midsummer sales saw the Modern given way to the traditional with a flurry of exceptional prices for Old Master paintings and drawings and Renaissance works of art.