British Museum vs V&A - London

Our one and only visit to London circa 1996 did NOT take in any museum. Museums are ALL I wanted to accomplish this time. Within the first couple of hours, we both realized that those two museums are designed for the uninitiated. Though we have been around the world a few times, there are still many places we are yet to visit, the British Museum and the V&A are great.

The number of objects exhibited in the two museums are astronomical, may even be unparalleled by any other museum, and they are both global in coverage. In every other way the two are opposite and complementary. For a museum of its size and caliber, the British Museum is quite unique in that it mostly only collects artifacts. The V&A on the hand is an all-in-one history, technology, decorative art, ethnography, whatever else museum.

British Museum	V&A
Focus on antiquity	Focus on the recent half millenium
More about collecting	More about educating
Real artifacts	Use of reproduction
Specialized scope	Generalized scope

Both are exhausting yet fun to explore.

The Great Court of the British Museum.


There's always a crowd around the Rosetta Stone.


This stairwell between rooms of the Egyptian exhibits was filled with Roman Mosaics which we love to see.


And the Egyptian exhibit halls were very popular as well.







The Assyrian monumental pieces were very cool.


And we were excited to see this set of Chinese Guardians in the Asian section.


The central Garden of the V&A (Victoria and Albert Museum); a great place to take a break.


One of the highlights of the V&A is the main lobby blue, yellow, and green, chandelier.


The V&A has life-size plaster casts (and replicas/copies) of some of the great monuments of Medieval and Ancient Europe. Here is Trajan's Column (from the Roman Forum) in two sections.


Here is a copy/cast of David by Michelangelo and behind on the wall is a copy of School of Athens by Raphael. Sun-Ling and I have seen both in situ, so it was somewhat underwhelming to see these copies.


The Raphael Cartoons were a highlight even though we've seen the actual tapestries in the Sistine Chapel.