Creating the V&A tells the definitive story of the formative years of London's world renowned Victoria and Albert Museum and the gathering of its early collections in the decade between the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the death of Prince Albert in 1861. The story of the V&A's genesis is often centered on the first director and first curator (Henry Cole and J. C. Robinson), and their competing agendas for design reform and connoisseurship. And yet there is an untold story of how the young royal couple for whom it is named were highly instrumental in the establishment of the museum, as public supporters and large-scale lenders before a permanent collection was in place. The book is also full of fascinating and colorful stories of the strategies deployed to harvest treasures on the market as the young museum sought to fill its rapidly expanding buildings and compete with the British Museum and the Crystal Palace. For anyone interested in the history of collecting and curating, and for all fans of this legendary London museum, Creating the V&A explains how the foundational collections established parameters which still inform the museum's collecting policies, role, and identity today.

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Winnie-the-Pooh is one of the best-loved and most successful children's characters of all time. Published to accompany a major exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, this book explores the fascinating story behind the development of Winnie-the-Pooh and friends through the creative collaboration between author A. A. Milne and illustrator E. H. Shepard. Beautifully illustrated with original drawings from the first editions accompanied by extracts from the manuscripts and the published books, Winnie-the-Pooh: Exploring a Classic is a testament to the bear's enduring popularity.

This beautifully illustrated study places Prince Albert at the helm of the South Kensington project, the man whose vision and ambition gave us the V+A, the flagship of 'Albertopolis', London's cultural quarter for art, science and education.

This is an in-depth study in English of the art of the Fatimids who ruled over part of North Africa, Egypt and Syria from 969 to 1171 AD. Based on the Victoria and Albert Museum's collection, the material is arranged in four sections: ceramic, rock crystals and glass, woodwork, and textiles.

A beautifully presented survey of design and the applied arts, explored not by use, material, form, or date . . . but by color. The V&A Book of Color in Design is attractively simple: a celebration and exploration of color, as revealed through objects in the world-class collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Structured by color, it offers fascinating insights into the choices made by designers and makers from across the world and throughout history. Each chapter begins with a brief introduction that considers the history, symbolism, and use of an individual color. Objects—from items of jewelry, textiles, glassware, and ceramics to furniture and more—are reproduced in a visual selection that explores the varied hues of every color. However different objects within each section may be in their detail and meaning, they are united by their common color, revealing surprising connections between them. Throughout, narrative captions bring together disparate items from across the V&A’s collection to explore the universal significance of color in art and design. Beautifully designed, this highly visual, color-led survey of design and the applied arts is a compelling sourcebook with broad appeal for anyone interested or involved in all aspects of visual culture.

A practical guide to embroidery, inspired by craft traditions from across the globe, and the second volume in the Maker’s Guides series from the Victoria and Albert Museum Embroidery: A Maker’s Guide contains fifteen beautiful step- by- step projects for crafters at all levels. Each one takes its cue from a different tradition, including English goldwork, Indian beetle- wing embellishment, Japanese Kogin, and Irish whitework, as well as contemporary machine embroidery. This modern maker’s guide to decorative stitching traditions around the world will expand readers’ crafting horizons and become an invaluable addition to every crafting shelf.

A richly illustrated sourcebook of two-dimensional pattern and three-dimensional ornamentation, for designers everywhere and anyone interested in visual culture. This richly illustrated, easy-to-navigate sourcebook of surface pattern and three-dimensional ornamentation presents more than one thousand historic and contemporary examples from around the world, each one succinctly identified and explained. Arranged thematically, it is unique among pattern books, as it includes examples not only of surface pattern but also three-dimensional ornamentation and embellishment, from Japanese kimono and William Morris fabrics to Chinese porcelain and contemporary furniture. Creatives working today are as fascinated and inspired by pattern and ornament as they have always been and this expertly compiled selection will appeal to designers, artists, and illustrators from all disciplines as well as anyone interested in visual and material culture.

Here is a unique window into 18th-century English life, into a privileged world of fashion, country houses, and travel as it was experienced and recorded by Barbara Johnson. 122 illustrations, 93 in color.