Loan Collections for Museums

Abstract

IT cannot be too widely known that there are available for local museums and art galleries small collections of objects of art and of scientific interest on loan from the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. The objects are accurately labelled, and each set is contained in “one museum case of the ordinary type”. The collections cover a wide field of interest. For example, to mention a few, the Victoria and Albert Museum has forty-three sets illustrating Far Eastern pottery and porcelain, thirty-four sets of English pottery, porcelain and tiles, fifteen sets of English silver and Sheffield plate, twenty-seven sets of English and twenty-nine of European embroideries and woven fabrics, and six sets of musical instruments. On three months' loan from the same museum may be obtained collections of water-colours of the British school, Charles Keene's Punch drawings, Japanese colour prints with the tools and materials used in the process. Somewhat similar collections are lent by the British Museum, including water colours by J. M. W. Turner, and additional sets illustrating typical Egyptian gods, and the handiwork of the Bronze and Stone Ages. Information about the conditions on which the loan collections are issued may be obtained from the directors of the museums mentioned.