Design for Victoria and Albert Museum by William Bell Scott, Ceramic Gallery, stained glass window (Chinese), drawn, ca. 1870

Small-scale pen and ink drawing with watercolour on paper. Arranged as two stacked pairs of yellow-bordered rectangular window lights crowned with a semi-circular window light, this design for a stained-glass window in the Ceramic Gallery (now the Silver Gallery, Rooms 65-69) represents Chinese ceramic manufacture. In the semi-circular window light, a seated male figure, the Venerable Chou, decorates a ceramic animal; a standing female figure, the Fair Chou, decorates a bowl. Beneath this, the upper pair of rectangular window lights contains scenes populated with small figures. These show the finding of kaolin in the mountains and refining it in large vats (left), and the forming and firing of pots (right). The decoration of each of the bottom pair of rectangular lights is comprised of a waterside image with a heron, peony-like flowers and a small tree. Drawn to a larger scale and coloured with yellow watercolour, to the side is a detail of the border design. Subject matter listed on mount.

As carried out during the late 1860s and 1870s, the interior of the Lecture Theatre block of the Victoria and Albert Museum - containing the Lecture Theatre, Ceramic Gallery (now the Silver Gallery, Rooms 65-69) and refreshment rooms - was elaborately decorated. This pen and ink drawing comprises one of William Bell Scott’s designs for the fourteen stained-glass windows in the Ceramic Gallery. Henry Cole, the first director of the Museum, was responsible for the theme. Mirroring the arrangement of ceramic items within the gallery, the stained-glass windows depicted historical periods of ceramic manufacture: seen here is Chinese ceramic production. Scott executed the designs by painting onto glass panes with a brush, keeping the windows virtually free of colour (yellow being the only stain used) so as not to darken the gallery. Scott also designed two stained-glass windows for the landings of the two staircases leading up from the Ceramic Gallery to the Lecture Theatre.

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