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Interior view of the Sheepshanks Gallery (Gallery 26) under construction, South Kensington Museum

Photograph
c. 1857 (photographed)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Photographs and photographers were present from the very beginning of the V&A's history and the Museum has an extensive collection of images from the 1850s through to the present which documents the construction and development of the V&A and the South Kensington site.

Originally collected by the National Art Library as part of a programme to record works of art, architecture and design in the interest of public education, these topographic and architectural views were valued as records and as source material for students of architecture and design. As well as being crucial records of the history of the V&A, and an important element within the National Art Library's visual encyclopaedia, these photographs are also significant artefacts in the history of the art of photography.

Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleInterior view of the Sheepshanks Gallery (Gallery 26) under construction, South Kensington Museum (generic title)
Materials and techniques
Albumen print
Brief description
Mounted albumen print, interior view, Sheepshanks Gallery (Gallery 26) under construction, South Kensington Museum, c.1857
Physical description
A mounted alubmen print of a close-up view from inside a building under construction and covered by scaffolding. The view is through a window cut in the brick wall which has yet to be glazed.
Dimensions
  • Image height: 23.5cm
  • Image width: 29.9cm
  • Mount height: 26.9cm
  • Mount width: 33.2cm
Marks and inscriptions
  • 'IIaa' (ink, upper centre mount)
  • 'A.b. London Building Sheepshanks Gallery' (classification system label)
  • Library stamp (blindstamp, upper centre mount)
Gallery label
(06 03 2014)
Gallery 100 ‘A History of Photography’, 2014-2015, label text:

Charles Thurston Thompson (1816–68)
Interior View of Sheepshanks Gallery under Construction
About 1857

Thurston Thompson composed an absorbing and complex view by photographing a succession of unglazed windows through scaffolding. The image shows the photographer transforming the act of recording into an exercise in abstraction.

Albumen print
Museum no. 33:959
Subjects depicted
Place depicted
Summary
Photographs and photographers were present from the very beginning of the V&A's history and the Museum has an extensive collection of images from the 1850s through to the present which documents the construction and development of the V&A and the South Kensington site.

Originally collected by the National Art Library as part of a programme to record works of art, architecture and design in the interest of public education, these topographic and architectural views were valued as records and as source material for students of architecture and design. As well as being crucial records of the history of the V&A, and an important element within the National Art Library's visual encyclopaedia, these photographs are also significant artefacts in the history of the art of photography.
Other number
936 (MA/32/4) - Negative number (V&A Archive Guard Book reference)
Collection
Accession number
33959

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Record createdJuly 1, 2009
Record URL
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