Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T09:52:06.261Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Henry Cole’s European Travels and the Building of the South Kensington Museum in the 1850s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Christopher Whitehead
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In January 1859, Henry Cole, the first Director of the South Kensington Museum (from 1899 known as the Victoria and Albert Museum) was in Rome, commissioning the photographer Pietro Dovizielli to produce photographs of buildings in the capital which Cole considered ‘suggestive’ and ‘picturesque’.

Type
Other
Information
Architectural History , Volume 48 , 2005 , pp. 207 - 234
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1 Italian Journal (henceforth IJ), 25.1.1859, pp. 289–90. See note 16 for a full reference to the journals.

2 Martin Barnes and Christopher Whitehead, ‘The "Suggestiveness" of Roman Architecture: Henry Cole and Pietro Dovizielli’s Photographic Survey of 1859’, Architectural History, 41 (1998), pp. 192-208.

3 Pevsner, Nicolaus, A History of Building Types (London, 1979)Google Scholar; Diane Ghirardo, Architecture after Modernism (London, 1996), and The Architecture of the Museum: Symbolic Structures, Urban Contexts, ed. Michaela Giebelhausen (Manchester, 2003). See the latter, especially p. 2, for further considerations on the symbolic importance of museum architecture.

4 Giebelhausen, The Architecture of the Museum, p. 2.

5 In this context it is worth citing John Physick’s important monograph, The Victoria and Albert Museum: a History of its Building (London, 1982).

6 For example, the Prague Museum of Decorative Arts, founded in 1885, and the Cincinnati Art Museum opened in 1886. See Conforti, Michae, ‘The Idealist Enterprise and the Applied Arts’, in A Grand Design: the Art of the Victoria and Albert Museum, ed. Malcolm Baker and Brenda Richardson (New York, 1997), pp. 23–49 Google Scholar; and Burton, Anthony, Vision and Accident: the story of the Victoria and Albert Museum (London, 1999), pp. 112–14.Google Scholar

7 For reasons of space it is impossible to reproduce all of the buildings this essay will discuss. I have therefore chosen to illustrate only the museum buildings and, of the buildings Cole visited, only the least well known and accessible.

8 Hampton Court (London, 1843); Westminster Abbey (London, 1844); A Glance at the Temple Church (London, 1844). See Bonython, Elizabeth and Burton, Anthony, The Great Exhibitor: the Life and Work of Henry Cole (London, 2003), pp. 82–83.Google Scholar

9 The designer Godfrey Sykes, for example, travelled to Italy in 1861; from Pisa he sent a letter (held at the National Art Library) to Cole concerning the Leaning Tower and making suggestions for the decoration of the South Court of the South Kensington Museum. The Royal Engineer Francis Fowke, who designed many of the museum’s early buildings, travelled to Italy in 1863. After Fowke’s death in 1863, Fowke’s successor Henry Scott (also a Royal Engineer), accompanied Cole in his second Italian journey of 1868. This was specifically for ‘the purpose of seeing [the] architectural adaptation of mosaics’ with a view both to the future development of the museum’s collection and its buildings. This journey is discussed in Bonython and Burton, The Great Exhibitor, pp. 242-43.

10 Of the women of Bonn, Cole noted: ‘They wore peaked felt bonnets something of this kind [2 sketches] and others had thin caps frilled at the sides and [?] and many wore cotton cloaks with hoods pleated in front.’ (Vienna Journal (henceforth VJ), 23.11.1851, p. 7; see note 14 for a full reference.)

11 VJ, 29.11.1851, p. 18.

12 VJ, 25.11.1851, p. 11.

13 IJ, 11.12.1858, p. 160.

14 He was in fact sending it home in instalments. He noted while in Lausanne on 24 October 1858 that his daughter Mary (who was at home in London) preferred the Swiss instalment of his journal to the Italian one. He did not explain why.

15 The entry for 1 October 1872 of Cole’s brief journal entitled ‘Mr Cole’s Diary & Notes of Journey in Belgium & Germany’ (held at the National Art Library) reads: ‘Several works have been published illustrating the two Sieges of Paris, & numerous illustrations of the proceedings of the Commune, showing the damage done to the public buildings. It is desirable while the work can be [tick (in another hand)] done, that a collection should be made, & I recommend that a sum of £20 be appropriated for the purpose. Photographs should be included in such illustrations’ (p. 40).

16 ‘Notes of a Journey to Vienna and Back in November and December, MDCCCLI. In Company with Herbert Minton’, 1851, held at the National Art Library; ‘A Journal Kept by Henry Cole, C.B., During his Absence from England on Sick Leave, and Relating to his Travels in Northern Italy with Samuel and Richard Redgrave during September 1858;- his Stay in Switzerland with Marian F. Cole, his Wife, from the 1st of October to the 6 th of December 1858;- and his Stay in Rome During January 1859; Naples, in February; and Passage through France with his Daughters Laetitia Marian, and Mary Charlotte Cole, March, MDCCCLIX’, 1859, held at the Archive of the Royal College of Art; ‘Notes of a Journey to Vienna and Back in October x November, MDCCCLXIII. In Company with Richard and Samuel Redgrave, Brothers. By Henry Cole, Secretary of the Science and Art Department and Director of the South Kensington Museum’, 1863, held at the National Art Library. Further journals not discussed in this essay include: ‘Notes of a Journey to Palermo and Back in October, November & December, MDCCCLXVIII: in company with Lieut.-Col. Scott, R.E.’, 1868; ‘Notes on Spain’, 1870; and ‘Mr Cole’s Diary & Notes of Journey in Belgium & Germany’, unpublished travel journal, 1872, held at the National Art Library.

17 To all intents and purposes Fowke can indeed be called an ‘architect’, but it is worthwhile noting that as he had in fact trained as a Royal Engineer, not all of his contemporaries chose to see him as such.

18 Barnes and Whitehead, ‘The "Suggestiveness" of Roman Architecture’, p. 196.

19 Amery, Colin, A Celebration of Art and Architecture: the National Gallery Sainsbury Wing (London, 1992), pp. 66–72.Google Scholar

20 Barnes and Whitehead, ‘The "Suggestiveness" of Roman Architecture’.

21 For the sake of convenience, the countries Cole visited will be referred to by their current names.

22 VJ, 24.11.1851, p. 10.

23 It is worth stating the obvious by noting that Cole saw a fundamentally different Germany — architecturally speaking — than that which exists today. Many of the buildings and cityscapes about which he commented were bombarded during World War II and as such are either no more or have been almost entirely restored.

24 The service is now in the collection of Vienna’s Hofsilber- und Tafelkammer.

25 Bonython and Burton, The Great Exhibitor, p. 111. See chapter 7 in general for an overview of Cole’s activities in design reform.

26 See Susannah Avery-Quash, ‘Creating a Taste for Beauty: Henry Cole’s Book Ventures’ (doctoral thesis, University of Cambridge, 1997); Shirley Bury, ‘Redgrave and Felix Summerly’s Art-Manufactures’, in Richard? Redgrave 1804-1888, ed. Susan P. Casteras and Ronald Parkinson (London, 1988), pp. 37-47; Bonython and Burton, The Great Exhibitor, pp. 79-98. For an account of the development of principles of design at the Schools of Design, see Burton, Anthony, ‘Redgrave as Art Educator, Museum Official and Design Theorist’, in Richard Redgrave, pp. 48–70.Google Scholar

27 Bonython and Burton, The Great Exhibitor, pp. 146-47. The educational establishment was Prince Albert’s brainchild.

28 VJ, 21.11.1859, P- 3- The previous name of Het Paradijs was in fact Schippershuys, or ‘Fisherman’s House’. It is difficult to guess to which other building Cole refers, as the other remaining historic buildings on the Haverwerf postdate Het Paradijs. However, a couple of buildings further down the river Dijle to the southeast on the Zoutwerf may also be possibilities. No photographs of buildings in Mechelen are currently on record at the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Photography Collection; thanks are due to Martin Barnes, the collection’s curator, for verifying this.

29 See Barnes and Whitehead, ‘The "Suggestiveness" of Roman Architecture’, for a more extended discussion of Cole and architectural photography.

30 V], 22.11.1851, p. 5.

31 Cole, obviously, was familiar with both authors. He had read Pugin’s 1841 True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture in 1842 and had reviewed Ruskin’s Seven Lamps of Architecture, albeit not altogether favourably, in 1849 (Bonython and Burton, The Great Exhibitor, p. 90, and p. 114 for an account of subsequent interaction between Ruskin and Cole). Bonython and Burton suggest that Cole’s repeated insistence on ‘true principles’ of taste and design may have been ‘fired by the urgent, incisive prescriptions and interdicts of Pugin’ (The Great Exhibitor, p. 90). Pugin’s role in the purchase of a collection of objects from the Great Exhibition is also discussed here (The Great Exhibitor, p. 146). Pugin’s development of the Mediaeval Court at the Great Exhibition would also suggest that Cole would have been very familiar with Pugin’s work and ideas.

32 VJ, 22.11.1851, p. 5.

33 VJ, 22 and 23.11.1859 respectively (pp. 6-7). Gross St Martin was largely rebuilt after it was bombarded during the Second World War.

34 VJ, 22.11.1851, p. 5.

35 VJ, 23.11.1851, p. 7.

36 See, for example, the introduction to Triumph of the Baroque: Architecture in Europe, 1600-1750, ed. Henry Millon (London, 1999).

37 VJ, 23.11.1851, p. 7.

38 Quoted in Physick, The Victoria and Albert Museum, p. 108.

39 VJ, 25.11.1851, pp. 11-12.

40 See Darby, Michael, The Islamic Perspective (London, 1983), pp. 101–05 Google Scholar; Levi, Donata, ‘Ercole Tatuato come un Indigeno: il Dibattito sulla Policromia nel Mondo Classico nella Gran Bretagna di metà Ottocento’, Ricerche di Storia dell’Arte (1989), pp. 22–43 Google Scholar; Jackson, Neil, ‘Clarity or Camouflage? The Development of Constructional Polychromy in the 1850s and 1860s’, in Architectural History, 47 (2004), pp. 201–26.Google Scholar Harry Francis Mallgrave has noted that Jones’s 1856 Grammar of Ornament can ‘be read as an exposition of the educational and decorative reforms that Cole was attempting to institute in the 1840s and 1850s’ (Gottfried Semper: Architect of the Nineteenth Century (London, 1996), p. 195). Among the books included in the Cole bequest (held at the National Art Library) was Gilbert J. French’s Hints on the Arrangement of Colours in Ancient Decorative Art: with some Observations on the Theory of Complimentary Colours (Manchester, 1850).

41 VJ, 25.11.1851, p. 11.

42 Sebastian Ertle. Only one of the tombs is now attributed to him.

43 VJ, 27.11.1851, p. 13.

44 ‘It is very striking and its architecture differs from that of any other theatre I know, so far as relates to the arrangement of the boxes. Each one accommodates two persons in front and each has a sort of canopy above and a curtain between the middle which makes it both public and private. It is said that the semicircular canopies add to the acoustic qualities of the theatre’ (VJ, 29.11.1851, p. 18). Cole’s professional relationship with Semper is extensively discussed in Harry Francis Mallgrave, Gottfried Semper, pp. 193-97, 207-13.

45 In the Italian journal entry for 23 October 1858 Cole notes that, ‘In my spare time I am trying to design a music hall with picture galleries’ (p. 88). See Marcus Binney, ‘The Origins of the Albert Hall’, Country Life, 149 (25 March 1971), pp. 680-83.?

46 VJ, 30.11.1851, p. 18.

47 VJ, 29.11.1851, p. 16.

48 Girouard, Mark, Harlaxton Manor (Grantham, 1984).Google Scholar Ralph Nicholson Wornum characterized ‘Louis Quatorze’ by its variety and ‘play of light and shade’ (Ralph Nicholson Wornum, ‘The Exhibition as a Lesson in Taste’, in The Art Journal Illustrated Catalogue: the Industry of all Nations, 1851 (London, 1851), pp. i-xxii).

49 VJ, 29.11.1851, p. 17.

50 See the Report on the Select Committee appointed to consider the best means of securing Open Spaces in the Vicinity of populous Towns, as Public Walks and Places of Exercise, calculated to promote the Health and Comfort of the Inhabitants (London, 1833).

51 See Whitehead, Christopher, ‘Enjoyment for the Thousands: Sculpture Display at South Kensington 1851-1862’, in The Lustrous Trade: Material Culture and the History of Sculpture in England and Italy c. ijoo-c.1860, ed. Alison Yarrington and Cinzia Sicca Bursill-Hall (Leicester, 2000), pp. 222–40.Google Scholar For the Kensington Gore project, see F. H. W. Shepherd, Survey of London, vol. 41; and Christopher Whitehead, The Public art museum in nineteenth-century Britain: the Development of the National Gallery (Aldershot, 2005).

52 See Physick, The Victoria and Albert Museum, pp. 37, 153.

53 VJ, 29.11.1851, p. 17.

54 VJ, 1.12.1851, p. 20.

55 VJ, 3.12.1851, pp. 24-25. This is Kostel sv Mikulase in Mala Strana built by Kristof Dietzenhofer, his son Kiliian Ignaz and Anselmo Lurago, not the church of St Nicholas in the Old Town. Notably, the church was completed much later (in 1756) than Cole believed.

56 VJ, 3.12.1851, p. 25.

57 VJ, 4.12.1851, p. 26.

58 VJ, 4.12.1851-15.12.1851, pp. 25-46. This long stay was a result of the circumstances of Cole’s diplomatic mission: he and Minton were only able to display the dessert service in a room of the Imperial Palace six days into their stay; they were received by the Emperor Franz Josef five days later.

59 H 5.12.1851, p. 29.

60 VJ, 9.12.1851, p. 36.

61 VJ, 8.12.1851, p. 33

62 VJ, 8.12.1851, p. 32.

63 VJ, 10.12.1851, p. 37.

64 VJ, 8.12.1851, p. 34.

65 VJ, 7.12.1851, p. 32.

66 The other architect was Theophil Freiherr von Hansen (1813-91). The building, which now houses the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, was completed in 1856.

67 See Physick, The Victoria and Albert Museum, p. 37, and Barnes and Whitehead, ‘The "Suggestiveness" of Roman Architecture’, p. 204, n. 10.

68 VJ, 12.12.1851, pp. 40-41. See Bonython and Burton, The Great Exhibitor, pp. 228-29, f°r a discussion of Cole’s involvement in the employment and study of terracotta at the Universal Exhibition of 1867 in Paris.

69 Quoted in Henry Cole, Fifty Years of Public Work, 2 vols (London, 1884), I, p. 323; also quoted in Physick, The Victoria and Albert Museum, p. 26. Cole was in Paris for the International Exhibition of 1855.

70 Bonython and Burton, The Great Exhibitor, p. 186.

71 In discussing this Bonython and Burton instance Cole’s comments on the church of Santo Stefano in Bologna, which he ‘passed hastily through’ noting that ‘it is a subject for much study (see Murray)’ (The Great Exhibitor, p. 187).

72 IJ, 4.9.1858, p. 21.

73 IJ, 5.9.1858, p. 22.

74 See Burton, ‘Redgrave as Art Educator’.

75 John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture, 3rd edn (London, 1880), p. 35.

76 Jones, Owen, The Grammar of Ornament (London, 1856), p. 8.Google Scholar

77 The architect in question was Buschetto di Giovanni (dates unknown); ‘Busketus’ is the Latinized name which appears in the architect’s epigraph. The building was in fact commenced in 1063, and building continued until at least 1100.

78 Ruskin, John, Praeterita: the autobiography of John Ruskin (Oxford, 1983), p. 388.Google Scholar

79 IJ, 8.9.1858, p. 28.?

80 IJ, 10.2.1859, p. 338.

81 IJ, 10.9.1858, p. 31.

82 IJ, 11.9.1858, p. 35.

83 See Physick, The Victoria and Albert Museum, p. 117.

84 See Physick, The Victoria and Albert Museum, p. 68.

85 IJ, 11.1.1859, P- 24486 IJ, 15.9.1858, p. 42.

87 IJ, 19.9.1858, p. 47.

88 Fra Giovanni Giocondo, c. 1433-1515, to whom the design of the building is no longer attributed (see Penelope Brownwell and Francesco Curcio, Verona: Guida Storica-Artistica (Verona, 1998), p. 35).

89 IJ, 24.9.1858, p. 57. These photographs have not been identified within the Victoria and Albert’s photography collection; thanks are again due to Martin Barnes, the collection’s curator, for verifying this.

90 IJ, 25.9.1858, pp. 59-60.

91 See n. 2 above.

92 Cole continued, ‘They are of all periods — some the most extravagant rococaism & some prim & modern: Why should we not have statues on Westminster bridge and might not the Society of Arts begin and put one up[?]’ (Cole, Notes of a Journey to Vienna and Back, 21.10.1863, p. 40).

93 However, Cole’s dislike of Gothic Revival in architecture has been discussed by Bonython and Burton (The Great Exhibitor, p. 188).

94 Wornum, ‘The Exhibition as a Lesson in Taste’.

95 Wornum, ‘The Exhibition as a Lesson in Taste’, pp. iii- iv. Owen Jones was also fond of the term ‘Saracenic’, which he used to describe the style of a series of villa and shop interiors he designed in the 1840s (Mallgrave, Gottfried Semper, p. 195).

96 See Whitehead , The Public Art Museum; Physick, The Victoria and Albert Museum, pp. 39-45; Burton, Vision and Accident, p. 97.

97 See Bonython and Burton, The Great Exhibitor, p. 79.

98 For a discussion of permutations in the meaning of the term picturesque in nineteenth-century travel writings, see Buzard, James, The Beaten Track: European tourism, literature, and the ways to ‘culture’ (Oxford, 1993)/ PP- 187–88.Google Scholar

99 For example, Rubies, Joan Pau, ‘Travel Writing and Ethnography’, in The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing, ed. Peter Hulme and Tim Youngs (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 242–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Writes of Passage: Reading Travel Writing, ed. James Duncan and Derek Gregory (London, 1999).

100 For an extended discussion of this, see Whitehead, Christopher, ‘Aesthetic Otherness, Authenticity and the Roads to Museological Appropriation: Henry Cole’s Travel Writing and the Making of the Victoria and Albert Museum’, Studies in Travel Writing, 9.2 (Autumn 2005).Google Scholar

101 Cole, Notes of a Journey to Vienna, 29.10.1863, p. 79.

102 For general discussion of problems of biographical method, see The Troubled Pace of Biography, ed. Eric Homberger and John Charmley (London, 1988).