Victoria and Albert Museum

London, United Kingdom

The Victoria and Albert (V&A) is the world’s leading museum of art and design, with collections unrivalled in their scope and diversity. When the museum opened to the public in 1852, its mission was to reform design by making works of art available to all, improving the public’s understanding of the subject and providing inspiration for designers and manufacturers. Today, the V&A’s collections span over 5,000 years of human creativity in virtually every medium and from many parts of the world.

The V&A comprises a family of sites, including the V&A in South Kensington, Young V&A located in Bethnal Green, V&A Dundee in Scotland, the V&A Wedgwood Collection housed in Barlaston, Stoke-on-Trent, V&A Gallery at Design Society in Shekou, China, and opening in 2024/25 will be V&A East located within the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Stratford. Across these sites the museum showcases its collections to a wide range of audiences and aims to champion design and creativity in all its forms.

The V&A holds over 800 carpets and fragments in its Asian department. The centrepiece of the collection is the Ardabil Carpet (946 AH/1539-40 AD), the world's oldest dated carpet and one of the largest, most beautiful and historically important. Besides the Ardabil, the V&A collection is important primarily because of its size and range, which includes the many significant kinds of carpet woven during the Safavid period, but also because of the large number of 19th-century carpets acquired when they were new or almost new. In the 19th century the museum collected examples of carpets in Iran, and from dealers in London, which adhered to the principles of functional design which were being promulgated at the time. In the 20th century, the collection developed largely due to individual donations from within the United Kingdom.

Address(es)
Cromwell Road
South Kensington
SW7 2RL
London
United Kingdom
T +44 207 9422000
F +44 207 9422335

www.vam.ac.uk

Senior Curator, Middle East
Tim Stanley
T +44 207 942 2338
F +44 207 942 2335
t.stanley@vam.ac.uk





The Partner on Google Maps