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

Small-scale pen and ink drawing with watercolour on paper. Divided into four yellow-bordered rectangular lights, this design for a stained-glass window in the Ceramic Gallery (now the Silver Gallery, Rooms 65-69) is labelled ‘German (Meissen, Dresden)’, ‘Second window; recess’. In the upper left window light a bare-headed man, standing to the right of a figure with a brush and comb, holds a pot of hair powder, representing Böttcher discovering hair powder to be kaolin. In the upper right window light, a small waggon in the foreground transports materials to the turreted Château of Meissen seen on the hillside behind. The lower two window lights each contain a flower-filled vase surrounded by small insects, comprising ornament from Dresden ware. Drawn to a larger scale and coloured with yellow watercolour, to the side is a detail of the floral design to be used as a border. Annotations include ‘app[rove]d design but I think the lower panels rather vacant comp[are]d with Dutch design … 2/1/70’.

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 the German production of Meissen and Dresden ware. 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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