The Victorian Vision

Magazine Antiques, April, 2001 by Miriam Kramer

Queen Victoria is one of the few people whose names have become shorthand for an em, an outlook, and a style. The adjective Victorian conjures up many images, from the dour middle-aged queen in deepest mourning for her beloved Prince Albert to the remarkable advances made in science and engineering during her reign. She died on January 22, 1901, and to celebrate her life and times a number of exhibitions and other events are being held throughout Britain.

The largest and most ambitious exhibition is appropriately being organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Entitled Inventing New Britain: The Victorian Vision, it is on view from April 5 to July 29. Its aim is to show how modem Britain emerged from Victoria's reign (1837--1901). The curator is Paul Atterbury, who has commented that "many of our modem-day ideas about holidays, sexuality, entertainment, sport, leisure, science and technology are Victorian in origin." The exhibition is divided into a number of sections that explore various aspects of Victorian life and innovations. A book with the same tide as the exhibition, edited by John Mackenzie, has been published by V&A Publications and is distributed in the United States by Harry N. Abrams.

Among the other events marking the anniversary of the queen's death is the opening of her mausoleum to the public on May 23. Only occasionally open to the public, it is at Frogmore House near Windsor Castle. The queen died at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, where this year for the first time a walled fruit and flower garden created by Victoria and Albert will be open to the public. Kensington Palace in London, where Victoria was born, is holding an exhibition of her dresses and toys that is on view until April 1, 2002. Finally, also for the first time, the railway station at Ballater, Scotland, specially built for Victoria, opens to the public. It was to Ballater that she traveled to reach Balmoral, the house in the Scottish highlands near Aberdeen where she spent many holidays.