The Covid Diaries 29: The Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) incl. Filthy Lucre

A description of my trip to the V&A, including the exhibition Filthy Lucre. In which I enjoy a peaceful evening visit to the Cast Courts, and a wonderful Whistler-themed installation.

A Late Summer Evening at the V&A

The V&A is a wonderful place to wander. Even better, the lower visitor numbers during Covid-19 are a good time to do so peacefully. I visited the V&A a couple of weeks after it reopened; visits are still free (unless you want to donate) but you must book tickets in advance online. I visited with a friend one evening after work, on a slightly chilly but sunny late summer day. The whole evening was extremely pleasant. The visitor hosts all seemed to be very happy to be back at work and open to the public; the process of arriving at the side entrance, scanning tickets and sanitizing was all very smooth; and we could then wander at leisure as long as we were sticking to the rules. Thankfully there is no enforced ‘best practice’ one-way system here as at the British Museum.

In terms of the permanent collection, my friend and I took turns selecting the destination. I chose the Cast Courts, and then she chose Japan. I used to work in South Kensington and so would visit the V&A often, but this was before the renovation of the Cast Courts starting around 2014. Consequently it’s not a part of the museum I am particularly familiar with. It also seemed apt for lockdown in any case. The ‘cast’ in Cast Courts refers to mostly plaster casts of famous and notable monuments. The idea was that, before the days of mass travel, it was a way see great works of art. Visitors could see works by artists like Michelangelo, Donatello and the other Ninja Turtles, as well as the antiquities of Greece, Rome and other cultures.

Some of the casts, such as a copy of Trajan’s column, are absolutely enormous. It must have been an immense task to create the moulds and reproduction. The Cast Courts fell out of fashion by the mid-20th Century, but have been rehabilitated via their recent renovation. They are a nice survival and a window into previous methods of accessing culture, facilitating arts and history education and teaching art students to sketch and draw.

Filthy Lucre: Whistler’s Peacock Room Reimagined

The other thing that we made a beeline while at the V&A for was the temporary exhibition/installation Filthy Lucre. The title is a reference to a painting by James McNeill Whistler of shipping magnate Frederick Leyland. Leyland was the unwilling patron of the original Peacock Room which is now in the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. ‘Unwilling’ patron as Whistler had originally been invited to consult on the room to display Leyland’s porcelain collection, but took over while Leyland was out of town. He got very out of hand with his decoration scheme in peacock colours. It’s a famous pinnacle of Aesthetic Movement design but Leyland was unhappy and refused to pay. This led to an escalating feud that spilled over into the tabloids. It also resulted in a painting of Leyland as The Gold Scab: Eruption in Frilthy Lucre. Charming!

Filthy Lucre the installation has a couple of parts including a video on the original Peacock Room. But the main draw is a full-scale reimagined room by artist Darren Waterston which distorts the Peacock Room through the lens of Leyland and Whistler’s feud. The design resembles the original in its opulence, colour scheme and many porcelain vases, but everything is corrupted. The painting over the mantle resembles the original but the face is obscured. The vases are smashed or melting into the broken shelving. Whispering voices allude to the gossiping about the two men’s dispute. Most disturbingly, the golden peacocks in the wall decoration (which already look a bit annoyed in the original) are disembowelling each other). The room is full-scale and very immersive. It’s a wonderful little thing.

On its own merits: 3.5/5
Filthy Lucre: 4/5
Implementing Covid rules: 4/5

Filthy Lucre until 29 November 2020