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Tour: Touch Objects Room 7: Europe & the World
Pipe case
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Hello, I’m Elizabeth Hamilton and I’m a volunteer guide at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and here’s a pipe case for you.
Art and design in 17th-century Europe were shaped by trade, colonisation and religious conflict. The Dutch and French now established colonies in Asia and the Americas as Spain and Portugal had a century earlier. Imported goods, materials and commodities began to influence the way Europeans lived.
Tobacco smoking, for example, became a popular pastime for both men and women of all strata of society in Europe. Clay pipes, used to consume the ‘brown gold’ were produced in a variety of lengths, short for the pocket and very long for leisurely use in the inn or at home. Since they were easily broken, pipe cases were made to protect them.
This Dutch pipe case is carved most decoratively from walnut and is dated 1700 to 1730. You’re welcome to touch it. It would have housed a short-stemmed clay pipe and given protection to the pipe whilst also reflecting the status of its owner. Walnut is a hard wood, which lends itself to intricate carving. Often dark in colour, here it is a rich deep red-gold.
The case is in the form of a pipe and is mounted with the mouthpiece to the right and the bowl on the left. The mouthpiece has been turned on a lathe and has a ventilation hole at the end, but the rest of the stem is elaborately carved with foliate and scroll patterns. Towards the bowl end of the stem, to the left of the central turned knop, is a carved figure. Horizontal, as we look at him, his head is on the left and his feet to the right. He is holding high a scimitar whilst a sinuous serpent stands high to his waist about to be struck. The figure is dressed in a tunic and wears a cap, thought possibly to be Turkish in style. The ground to the carving is carefully stippled, perhaps with a hot pin, to give extra depth and interest to the decoration. The carved patterns are identical on each side of the stem and bowl.
The pipe case bowl has a fine carving of a face on its upper side. The eyes are deep and almond-shaped, the nose is broad and the open mouth is wide and straight. The cheeks are well-defined and the face is framed with carved decoration. The bowl is curved upwards to accommodate the clay pipe, which was inserted into the case through the base of the bowl. This would be opened on the brass hinge, which can be felt at the top.
Amsterdam and Gouda were particular centres for pipe-making and the associated crafts. Whilst ornate, this pipe case lacks silver mounts and other more decorative elements and so we may conclude that a wealthy man, but of the mercantile class, once owned it.
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Tour: Touch Objects Room 6: The Cabinet
Lizard cast
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Hello, I’m Elizabeth Hamilton and I’m a volunteer guide at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and here we have a bearded dragon lizard.
This gallery is one of our smaller galleries. Called The Cabinet it is designed to reflect the 17th-century enthusiasm for collecting. The displays show precious objects, which would be shown in ‘cabinets’, meaning small rooms or carefully designed pieces of furniture. Such objects might include works of virtuoso artistry and craftsmanship, strange natural phenomena and rarities from around the world.
This bronze cast of a bearded dragon lizard stands proud on a table of activities designed to introduce us to the interest in art, science and collecting. You’re welcome to touch it. The lizard is a ‘life cast’, meaning that it was not modelled, but cast from an actual lizard. Life casts were popular in 17th-century collections as they represented a fusion of nature and art. Andrew Lacey, the sculptor who made this cast, has captured all the details of the original creature. It has spiny scales arranged in rows and clusters. The broad smoother triangular head has deep eye sockets on either side towards the mouth and nose. The term ‘beard’ refers to the sharp scales around the chin and to the underside of the throat. The four legs are bent in a crawling position. The scales here are rather smoother. Each foot has five irregular toes like fine fingers. Notice that the feet are not identical and the front feet are stubbier. The tail narrows to a blunt end.
Bearded dragon lizards come from Australia. Our lizard had died some time before the cast was made. We could not use a European lizard because it is now illegal to collect them.
The whole surface of the activity table is cast in bronze from a linocut illustration by Alexis Snell. The lizard is set on a leafy bed with flowers and insects. To its right is a game, similar to Snakes and Ladders but showing the ups and downs of a 17th- century collector. Beyond that there is an ocean with ships, and an octopus and shells. Rising out of the ocean is a globe.
To the left of the lizard is a small case with a clockwork tortoise and a small gilded sailing ship on wheels. Beyond that there is another bronze surface. It has an illustration of the Garden of Eden inspired by a painting by Jan Brueghel the Elder dated around 1600. This hangs on a wall nearby. Animals and birds of the world, as known then, feature in a lush leafy jungle – deer, monkeys, leopards and parrots and toucans.
Enjoy your encounter with the bearded dragon lizard and we hope you will explore the activity with all the enthusiasm of the discoverers of the 17th century.
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Tour: Touch Objects Room 5: The Rise of France
Roundel
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Hello, I’m Elizabeth Hamilton and I’m a volunteer guide at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and here is a carved roundel for you to handle.
1660 to 1720 saw the rise of France as the major power in Europe. Louis XIV promoted his state through the arts, encouraging French workshops to make luxury goods for home and export. His palace at Versailles became a showcase for such goods and Paris became the centre of European fashion. New periodicals were key in promoting French style throughout Europe.
Room panelling was a popular feature in French interior design of the 17th and 18th centuries, and oak was the wood most commonly used. However oak is not traditionally used for detailed carving because of its long and sometime fibrous grain, walnut usually being preferred. This carved oak roundel made between 1700 and 1725 therefore exemplifies the extraordinary skill of French workshops at this time. You’re welcome to touch it. The large hole in the centre of this roundel suggests that it may once have been attached to panelling or to a door as a decorative feature. There are two other smaller holes for attachment.
The oak used for this roundel is pale in colour and unpainted, which allows for clear visual appreciation of the detailed carving. Central to the carved decorative design is an eight-petalled floral motif within a ring. Radiating outward alternately are four cornucopiae overflowing with flowers and four stylised shell- and scroll-like motifs.
The carving is precise and intricate and reflects the creative pattern designs of Jean Berain, who for 30 years was an official designer to the court of Louis XIV.
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Tour: Touch Objects Room 3 & 2: City & Commerce
Reproduction decorative oval
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Hello, I’m Elizabeth Hamilton and I’m a volunteer guide at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and here we have a decorative oval from a Tula steel fireplace for you to handle.
From about 1720 wealthy Europeans enjoyed a less formal way of living, which began in France and eventually reached all parts of Europe. Both the aristocracy and the expanding middle class revelled in new levels of comfort.
Artists and designers developed a new decorative style that we call Rococo, playful and fantastical, with themes from nature and the East. In reaction to this, came the formal Neoclassical style inspired by archaeological discoveries of Ancient Greece and Rome.
This object is a reproduction of one of eleven sections making up the fender of a Neoclassical fireplace made about 1800 in the Imperial Arms Factory at Tula, south of Moscow. You’re welcome to touch it. By this date the factory was making a range of luxury items for domestic use. Tula products are distinctive for the unique technique of cutting metal into facets. Hundreds or even thousands of faceted steel beads could be applied to a plain metal base creating a rich jewelled effect. These decorative techniques all feature on the fireplace, which comes complete with fender and shelf ornaments made of burnished steel with applied decoration of gilt copper and brass and cut steel.
The fireplace is rectangular in form, built of steel plates joined by screws and rivets. The ornaments comprise an urn-shaped vase at each end and a perfume burner in the centre. There is a pair of candlesticks, also Tula steel, but not original to the fireplace.
The fender, from which this piece is copied, stands on five ball feet. It bows out in the middle and between the upper and lower rails the fender is created with eleven oval floral wreaths of steel separated by ornate pierced tracery in studded cut steel. The oval replica piece we have here is the central section of one of those floral wreaths. Two cast copper alloy sprays of wheat have been gilded and mounted on a shiny steel back plate. The steel plate is fluted around the edges and has a decorative finish. There are three bolts on the sprays, one at the base, which forms the knot tying the sprays together. Each bolt is hammered to resemble a rose-cut gemstone. In the centre of the piece is a steel knob, again faceted like a gemstone, reaffirming the overall jewelled impression of the fireplace.
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Tour: Touch Objects Room 1: Luxury, Liberty & Power
Gingerbread mould
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Hello, I’m Elizabeth Hamilton and I’m a volunteer guide at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Here’s a gingerbread mould.
By the late 18th century fashionable goods were reaching most corners of Europe. Comfort was a priority and families accumulated objects specific to recreation and relaxation in the home. The dominant style was Neoclassicism, inspired by archaeological discoveries of ancient Greece and Rome. However centuries-old local traditions and styles still prevailed in the production of many domestic objects, as we find here.
Culinary objects demonstrate the delight in having decorated foodstuffs on the dining table. This German mould of carved and incised pearwood would have been used to stamp gingerbread before baking. You’re welcome to touch it.
This example of folk art is oval in shape, and central to the design is a lamb standing in profile facing to the left. The curly fleece is well depicted, as is the long tail. The front right hoof is raised and seems to hold the staff of a flag to be seen to the right of the lamb’s head. Decorative flowers on a stem frame the lamb and the outer edge of the mould has a continuous leaf pattern. The date 1795 is incised beneath the lamb’s head. It reads correctly on the mould but would of course print in reverse. We don’t know the reason for this – perhaps it is simply a mistake.
The Lamb of God or Agnus Dei was a popular Christian motif, even in this culinary context, to remind one of Christ’s role as the sacrificial lamb, but also as the Saviour with the flag representing Christ triumphant.