Visiting the Victoria
and Albert Museum (London) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
From
the Tate Gallery I walked to the Victoria and Albert Museum (The V & A)
with toddler Florence checking out the squares with houses around them. Some of the squares had gardens while others
used the squares as parking lots.
We
were on Belgrave Road, which is lined with row houses surrounding fenced-in
squares with gardens. The row houses all
have a similar rectangular porch with a column on either side of the door. The small porch above the door on these homes
had become a terrace in most cases with chairs and tables.
I
turned down Eccelston Street. Somewhere
along the way, I left the Borough of Westminster and entered the Royal Boroughs
of Kensington and Chelsea.
There
were many embassies in the royal boroughs areas with no places for crossing the
street. When I found a crosswalk, I was
able to walk across the street with Florence, because the English stop at crosswalks
unlike French drivers.
Most
of the embassies have cute alleys called “mews,” which are dead ends on brick
roads and very clean. You find many mews
liked this on the backside of grandiose townhouses.
When
I arrived at the Victoria and Albert Museum, I was tired from walking and just
concentrated on the Italian collection.
I wanted to see Desidero Settignano’s bas relief of the Madonna and
Child.
I
loved this sculpture while flipping through hundreds of photographic plates at
the University of Chicago art library to memorize – artwork name, artist,
century completed (artistic periods get renamed), current location, and any
details that would help me memorize what the artwork looked like. People who draw might be able to do this
memorization task with sketching. I
loved being able to see this artwork as a young woman and not as a retiree.
I
went through the fashion history part of the museum, which led to the Nehru
Indian art galleries at the time. These
galleries had Mughal manuscripts out for viewing.
The
Mughals were Royal Indian Muslims with ties to Persians and the Rajput Warrior
Dynasties. I learned about the Mughals
at the University of Chicago when my Indian art class was able to view Mughal
paintings in the archives at a private class meeting at the Chicago Institute
of the Arts.
I
whizzed through the Chinese and Japanese collections and went back to Epping
(UK) with very happy souvenirs of my trip to London.
By
Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
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