The Victoria & Albert Museum Tour | A London Treasure 

In this video, Jessica, a tour guide with Free Tours by Foot London, takes you on a tour of the highlights of the Victoria and Albert Museum. NEXT: Tour of the British Museum: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-q2fBWKJL7SQ.html. If you enjoyed this virtual London tour, then please consider leaving Jessica a Tip at www.buymeacoffee.com/JessicaG... or www.paypal.com/paypalme/jessi.... She is also available for private tours - just contact our Tour Manager: Margaret@FreeToursByFoot.Com

Back in the early ‘70’s, I rented a small flat a short walk from the V&A, and on the weekends my favourite thing ( I was single and had hardly any money over after I paid my rent) was to visit the museum. It had a basic cafe back then, but tea and a sandwich was a cheap meal and it was never very crowded. I explored every nook and cranny, and there were lots of galleries that were hardly ever visited, the things that were fascinating to Victorians were a bit dull to ‘70’s folk. I had no idea that a few short years later, I would be employed to photograph the entire “British National WatercolourCollection”, over 9000 paintings and drawings, and a major global art treasure. It took me 6 months, with a small team and was one of my most enjoyable experiences as a photographer.

Jessica you are my favorite tour guide here. Please please do another pub tour with your husband!! That was supremely good

Mary Queen of Scots was never imprisoned in the Tower , it was various castles and big houses including Fotheringay !

What a beautiful place to be. It has been so long since I have been to a museum. V & A museum is stunning, breathtaking. What a treat.

Hello Jessica! Rob from Maple Bay, Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Thanks for the fascinating tour. We've walked past but never taken the time to enter. Now it's on my list for one of our future trips to London. Cheers!

, l was there last week. I went to see the Beatrice Potter exhibition and I went to the Japanese exhibition .that’s all the time we had, wish I had seen all these other things 🙏 thank you

more then 40 years ago I worked as a security Guard at the DeYoung museum in San Francisco and they had an exhibit from the Vatican and one of the statues was David among other wonderful things from the Vatican. I really enjoyed seeing David

This was really great Thanks. Just around the corner on Queens Gate is a little school called Duff Miller where Tom Hardy went ......and me, the most uninteresting person in the world.

Beautiful museum and thank you! Jaw dropping British certainly have enough talent to share w/ anyone and everyone who visits - and that just may be why the entire civilized world speaks English! True Anglophile here.... love this!!

When I was a young boy I thought why would anybody want to go in there now I love the v&a

Just amazing! Leaving Monday for London and will certainly visit the V&A!

So enjoyed this. I am from the US and will never be able to visit museums in England or Europe. I learned so much because you do a bit of research before you do your videos. I felt like I was there with you. Please do more!!!

This was such a great tour. The V and A is a truly beautiful museum. I would love to visit it.

The RU-vid channel, Victoria & Albert have is it video that’s about 13 years old now, called conservation: playing Tipu’s tiger. You can hear it on that. There aren’t screams there is just keys that can be played. I suppose they could sound like a scream. There is a bellows at the back of the Tigers head. When it goes down that sounds like a growl. I’m sure it used to sound more so like one

Super tour! Hope to go one day. Also ... the large ceramic altar piece of Mary, Jesus, Magdalena, and an apostle is hollowed out. Those holes in back were made to remove excess clay before firing. Otherwise, the pieces would have not only weighed a ton, but never would have successfully fired in whatever massive kiln was used. Thank you to my college ceramics elective. 😊

Great video ! , I had always heard of this museum but that was as far as it got ., What a magnificent place . Would you ever consider doing a tour of the imperial war museum ? . Thank you for taking me to see a place I'd never get to see otherwise . 👍👍👍👍👍 Much ❤ from Baltimore Maryland.

I saw this on Rick Steves Euro. Looks like a neat place.

Absolutely Breathtaking. Thank you Jessica. I truly hope to see it in person soon.

Thank you for bringing VNA to our homes or wherever we can see anywhere on RU-vid. It was amazing.

Hereford is a bit further than 22 miles from London

Thanks

one thing you did miss (no doubt due to the sheer size of the place, and time constraints) was the blue-and-white Chinese porcelain from the ming and Qing dynasties! If ever anyone pays a visit, make that one of your go to's👍😉

Wonderful. I recall many years ago seeing Elizabeth 1’s dress and tiny shoes

I recently found you ad already a huge fan. Big thank you for discussing the objects, mentioning the politics but not harping on it.

I will be in London in November. As my hotel is 5 minutes walk from this museum I will for sure visit it!!!!!

This was really interesting 😊

I loved the statues and screen. Thank you!

Thanks!

Awesome tour, I love museums but haven’t been able to go to very many so watching this video gave me a lot of joy and perhaps I’ll be a better person 😀

Thank you Jessica, I loved the tour. What an amazing museum! I hope to see it one day in person.

Excellent video Jessica and very informative! I had no idea the V&A was so vast, having only visited there one time in the 90's, all I remember seeing was clothes/fashion, which (as a boy) did not really appeal to me so much. Clearly I'd missed quite a lot. I'd be interested to see a tour of the Natural History Museum or Science Museum next

Jessica: Your concise and fascinating descriptions delivered with historical context are remarkable! I am subscribing to your channel immediately!

Michelangelo painted the Sistine chapel in the Vatican. not Leo

thank you So much! The V&A has a wonderful reputation and your video shows why. cheers!

Thank you 🙏 😊

THis is so beautiful museum tour with you my friend!! I really enjoyed with your explanation Thank you for sharing! Greeting from Korea😍😍

Great tour!! I didn't know this Victoria and Albert museum. How much history are inside, probably as was said need weeks to see all. The presenter only gave us one glimpse of arts and this was incredible. I liked so much 🤩

I’ve been there and the Dale C glass in the entry is FANTASTIC

I visited the V & A in the nineties with a group of fellow workers. They wandered off up West and I spent six hours in the Museum. I didn’t see everything by any means but I do remember being emotional over certain exhibits. I also noticed a very elderly couple who had come especially to see a Turner exhibition and they were mesmerised. I thought they were charming. I did not see any of your showcased items unfortunately, so thank you for this video.

So Trajan's Column in Rome is not fully complete?

Such a great tour!!!

Amazing video! If I ever get to London again I will most certainly pay another visit to the V&A. Just one thing - the makers of those tapestries would have been weavers, not embroiderers. I know it gets a bit confusing, considering the piece known as the Bayeux Tapestry is actually a work of embroidery.

It is a common purpose of art museums to try to elevate the aesthetic spirits of the visitors, especially the young, so as to inspire them, especially if they have the means and talent, to create beautiful pieces of their own and to make buildings and dwellings more pleasing in their towns. I, for one, get inspired when visiting art museums, moreso, those whose exhibits contain antique pieces as they make you appreciate even more the sheer hard work it took for those artists and craftsmen to perfect their skills trying to NOT waste sometimes expensive materials in failed projects or prelim studies/drafts as they did not have Palace Depot down the road from their hovel. Paper, bronze, tools, paints, canvas, etc. were expensive. No electricity, only candles at night. You thought today's frame shops were charging too much; a lot of the picture frames of old master paintings were carved masterpieces themselves! For some reason, going through a modern "art" museum doesn't cause the same excitement. Perhaps the lengthy dissertations in the guidebooks to explain why a random blob of paint is more worthy of praise than a Vermeer or the lack of any serious skill making that said blob is why. You start to scratch your head when looking through Architectural Digest at yet another Manhattan penthouse of an uber-rich CEO and see a hideous "art piece" mounted over the fireplace. It also is a bit unfair to judge our forgotten and toiling ancestors for living lives as best they knew how during brutal times (with 95% poverty by today's standards and life expectancy of 40 and no anesthesia, antibiotics, or other meds). Warfare was a constant. England was invaded and occupied by the Romans for 400 years....then by the Saxons/Angles/Jutes....then the Danes/Norsemen/ Normans...... In their mind perhaps, their later explorations and colonization of far-flung lands was humane. Somehow, we never criticize that 120,000,000 African slaves who died under the Arabs over 1400 years (and the continued slavery in Mauritania and elsewhere)(the male slaves often were castrated before being shipped off....if they survived). How many pieces of art in the V&A were saved because they were still not in their original buildings that were one day to be looted by Nazis or razed during hundreds of forgotten battles. This video has inspired me to go back on day and see the V& A. Let's applaud the named and nameless artists who worked their guts out for us to enjoy their creations. (and the thousands of masons, bricklayers, carpenters, cabinet makers, plumbers, electricians, roofers, glazers, tilers, potters, painters, plasterers who constructed such a splendid building to house these treasures). Our generation cannot even come close to being that talented despite every advantage at our fingertips.

Very good tour, thank you. Good images of the art, and the commentary is interesting and informative.

Are tourists allowed to visit the museum or is it for the British population? Thank you for your informative tour.

I just LOVE art!!

V&A is lovely! The themes of fashion section are often surprising ❤

I'm coming to London in November with two of my daughters. I've been reading and watching videos about London and English history. Thank you for a superb video! Best narration of any video I've watched so far. We could be friends (I'm 76).

I'm lucky I live about 20 minutes walk away so I'm always going to the 4 museums in South Kensington I never get bored and often see something I've missed before nice way to spend a day

Wow.

Thank for this !I I think some of the "twisted tortured pieces" were athletes, ie: stretching out, celebrating?" (Rodan sculptures).

My favorite museum❤ Thank you!

Thanks for the tour....I really enjoyed it.

Thank you. So very interesting ☺️ loved it all, from Australia 😀

Excellent Jessica

Splendid tour! Thank you

Loved the V&A. Wish you could have been my guide but I managed well on my own the staff were lovely and friendly

Great tour!! Thank you♥️

Never been to the V&A museum and it is one of my priority places to visit in my lifetime. For this reason, I couldn't see Canova's - Tre Grazie - version they hold there, but I've seen the Ermitage version ëxibited temporarily in the Museum Correr in Venice ( I don't remember when besides it was before 1993, I know it for sure due to personal reasons). The Ermitage Graces had me struck in such a powerful way I can still remember that after 30 years. The reason was not the composition, harmony of lines, and blah-bla stuff. It was the choice of the marble piece that made this specific sculpture EXTRAORDINARY! Canova's choice went to a "low-quality stone because of the black-greyish veining it held, instead of the totally white sort preferred by Neoclassical fashion. Of course, Antonio knew very well what he was doing. He was the leading artist of his time (one of the greatest of all time! Rest in peace Thorwaldsen...) not for nothing, so he shaped the form of those Goddese in perfect accord with the stone's chromatic features. The result was the greyish steins that paint from the buttocks down all 3 of them. The result is a really beastly effect that strikes, surprises, and - yes- arouses the admirer,. It is as we get to watch the combination of anthropomorphic and animal features, perfectly morphing together. I m obviously talking about the sexual connotations held by this masterpiece, but I want to add some more significance: The Beasty effect gives them LIFE and warmth, otherwise that cold marble and the saccharine composition would give the goddesses another generic portrait, prestigious, but not significant for real. Coming back to the V&A version/replica topic, I need to see it in its white version to understand the emotions I've got so long ago. Thank you for your report: I didn't know London has Canova's Graces as well...

Beautiful😍

Can you show the fan museum in London?

I think the V&A is my favourite museum in the world. Particularly the historical fashion section and the replica of the giant David statue. I can’t stand the glass alien sperm chandelier thing, but something tells me Queen Victoria wouldn’t have liked it either 😉

Enjoy your tours, and personality

Ok, another wonderful evening I have had watching your video!! Thank you so much for writing today it was so fun to actually hear from you! I have one thing that is very silly that I always look for in museums (any and all of them) and that is I would love to own a reproduction of the small palm sized Medea heads that were made as a 'talisman' and actually put up like a Jewish mezuzah. It seems that Medea's snakes and her face would protect houses and businesses from anything and everything. Today, if you see them, they are probably made from plastic (maybe terra cotta) and are honestly palm sized. So, as we do all of your wonderful tours might you have time to pop in the gift shop and take a quick look around? Alright, it is very late here in California so I will say good night and I will find you again tomorrow for another of your wonderful tours. And THANK YOU again !! I loved it!

Another EXCEPTIONAL video, Jessica. Thank you. Regarding those ceramic names at the stairway. They were part of a late Victorian belief that just reading the names of great artists invoked the spirit of their art and lives in our breast. This trend reach its pinnacle in the exterior design of three very similar art museums built at this time - one in Washington D.C., one in Edinborough, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney - in which a garland of famous names is prominant around the top part of the exterior walls. Intended purely to be inspirational, this has lead to generations of confused gallery patrons, who expect to see the art of the famous artists on the walls, and the disappointment of not finding them inside. As a result, the fleeting Victorian fad has become a liability. At least here at the V&A, they are more discrete and more likely to ignored, and therefore not confuse visitors.

Yes, you helped me have a better life today, and I’m grateful to you for that. 😸 2:50 2:50

Thank you so much for this wonderful tour

I loved your tour!

I have a vague memory of seeing some preserved shop facades in one of the London museums. Was that at the V&A or elsewhere. Leonardo's notebooks too?

Queen Victoria She assumed the title of Empress of India on 1 May 1876, some coins with her image were minted during her reign. I have a coin dated 1891. 1/2 pice - India 1891

Very good! 😊👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏 You have wetted my appetite to visit The V@A next time in London 😊👍👍

Funny how they coved David , with his fig leaf .But I can't remember anyone coving the naked woman 🤔

I have been to the v&A twice and missed so much, Thanks John In Chicago

I'm looking forward to exploring the V&A Museum this August. Do you need to schedule a time to enter?

Ohhh my sweet Azerbaijani carpet☺You miss Ardebil...

Sou do brazil e adoraria conhecer esse museu

Jessica I am now planning our hopefully spring trip to England with at least 5 (maybe more) day stay in the London area just so we can tour many of the museums and other sites I would love to visit. May I ask which 3 museums would you say were a must for a lover of the wonderful, antique and interesting? Also is May or early June a good time for weather and gardens? Not that gardens are your expertise, but thought I would ask.

SUPER

The captions for the Deaf are appreciated, thanks.

Great video.Thanks.

Loved watching your videos 👍

Fantastic tour I hope to visit it one day and this has helped pre-orientate me I'm in nz xx

Thank you do much for this its fab!

I love the V&A it has a captivating, collective, collection of odd exhibits and objects which other museums seem to miss out on. it's often neglected because of its casts and copies. Today its seen as fake and unworthy but it's not...its still an excellent museum and you can see these copies close-up whicht in there original state you would not be able too.

Thanks for sharing.

We represent the William Morris agency, the William Morris agency.

Lovely, thank you - one error. Great bed of Ware was from Hertfordshire not Herefordshire.

The Angevin gisants were not recognized. In the line up included Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry II, Richard the Lionheart, his wife Berengere and King John. All cast from the originals and each one highly accurate. Much more interesting than any statue of David.

We have a Chihuly chandelier in the Wichita Kansas Art Museum

My dad took a pic of Venus Di Melo in WWII in a french Chateau, the building was occupied by the Germans and they saved it the pic shows her with a German soldier hat and gun belt

cool movies thanks !

❤❤❤💕

pl tell us all of who the copies of the funeral casts of the dead were, were they plantagents ?

Jessica, I just saw your video in V&A museum and searched on the site and didn't find this tour. Could you help me?

A few comments. The effigies from original Templar Church, including William Marshal and sons where cast before WWII. The originals were damaged in bombing raids. The V and A has the full undamaged appearance.

Wait, a second where is the section for fashion and pop-culture? And music?

thankyou excellent

I tried to buy you a coffee to apologise for earlier but the page is not working. Can you reset it ?

I didn't realize that you had tattoos on your arms... what do you have in that red ♥️ and green 💚Does that tiger 🐅 thing still works you should have taped it so we could hear it....... WHY are some of them that tall and how long did it take them to get finished