Day Thirty-five from Melissa - Victoria and Albert Museum!

Hi. 

Class today. It's our second to last class from Dr. Durham, and I'm a little mournful. He's retiring after this. 

That is a sneak photo of him I took during class. As such, it's not very good. 

We talked about the Golden Mean and the Greeks and pentagons and pentagrams and flowers and the golden rectangle. Basically it was Donald Duck in Mathmagic Land, and I was left with a horrible craving to watch it again. It's surprising how much you absorb when you watch stuff when you're little!

Then we scuttled off to the Victoria and Albert Museum. There's an entrance right from the tube station. 

It's got less archaeology stuff and more everyday life stuff though the ages. This includes clothes, beds, dishes, sculptures, paintings, tapestries, jewelry, shoes, grave monuments, swaddling clothes - you name it, they've got it. 

Except for a drinking fountain or a garbage can. I couldn't find either of those. 

This is unique because it was the first mythological sculpture made in the British Isles. 

This is a pipe organ, once owned by an Indian emperor. When you turn the handle, the pipe organ plays notes that are supposed to sound like a mauled Englishman in agony. 

A middle eastern cup made out of stone. 

The great bed of Ware. Famous for its size since the 1500s, it was referenced by Shakespeare in one of his plays. It's still huge - far bigger than a king size bed, and the size of a small room. 

Look familiar?  I'm pretty certain it's by the man who did the sculptures for the Salt Lake 2002 Winter Olympics. 

One of the cast rooms. Casts of famous sculptures are brought here so people can see them without having to travel to the actual location. 

I'm always impressed by the transparency of cloth when carved in stone. How do you even do that?

One of Da Vinci's notebooks. It's as long as my hand and a little bit wider. You can see his backwards Italian on the left page. He was left-handed. On the left page he figures out the distribution of weight of a person being carried in a cloth by four other people. On the right page he has designs for canal diggers. Basically looks like a backhoe to me. 

And my personal favorite: the Luck of Edenhall. 

Not a very good photo. I have a better in my camera. 

The story goes that, surprised by the master of Edenhall, a band of startled fairies fled, leaving this glass behind. One called back,

If this glass should break or fall,

Beware the luck of Edenhall!

So for centuries it was carefully prized by this family. They made a case to house it, and treasures their fairy glass until the 1800's, when it was given to the museum. If my memory is right, the family went bankrupt not long after. 

Anyway, that was pretty much it.   Oh, except that Miriam and I went out for gelato after dinner. I got black cherry!