Victoria and Albert Museum Website

This series contains dated gathered versions (or 'snapshots') of the Victoria and Albert Museum website.

[Please note: These records may be accessed via the UK Government Web Archive using the links listed below (for a general explanation of these parallel links, please see the Arrangement field)]:

Victoria and Albert Museum (http://www.vam.ac.uk/).

Victoria and Albert Museum (https://www.vam.ac.uk/).

Please see information at Divisional level

This series contains more than one link to the ‘snapshots’ of this website. For some websites, the URL may change periodically. Despite this change to the URL these websites are part of the same record series as they represent the department or organisation’s presence on the web at the time. Occasionally, more than one domain URL to the same website may run in parallel creating an overlap.

• Department for Culture, Media and Sport, 1997-2017
• Victoria and Albert Museum, 1857-1857

Topics

Museums and galleries

Official publications

The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) is a leading museum of decorative arts and design. Named after Prince Albert and Queen Victoria, it was founded in 1852. Its collection contains encompasses several thousand years of human civilization and is notable for its variety, including: ceramics, glass, textiles, costumes, silver, ironwork, jewellery, furniture, sculpture, prints, paintings, drawings, and photographs.

The museum first opened at Marlborough House in 1852 as The Museum of Manufactures. By 1854 discussions were underway to transfer the museum to the current site and it was renamed as The South Kensington Museum. The current building, designed by Aston Webb, was built between 1899 and 1909. The dedication to Prince Albert and Queen Victoria was made public at the laying of the foundation stone, an event which happened to be Queen Victoria's last official public engagement.