Editing Victoria and Albert Museum (section)

===Furniture===
In November 2012, the museum opened its first gallery to be exclusively dedicated to furniture. Prior to this date furniture had been exhibited as part of a greater period context, rather than in isolation to showcase its design and construction merits. Among the designers showcased in the new gallery are [[Ron Arad (industrial designer)|Ron Arad]], [[Rococo Revival|John Henry Belter]], [[Joe Cesare Colombo|Joe Colombo]], [[Eileen Gray]], [[Verner Panton]], [[Gebrüder Thonet|Thonet]], and [[Frank Lloyd Wright]].<ref name="guardian">{{cite news |last=Wainwright |first=Oliver |author-link=Oliver Wainwright |date=27 November 2012 |title=Pull up a chair: inside the V&A's brilliant new furniture gallery |url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/nov/27/v-and-a-new-furniture-gallery |access-date=14 December 2012 |newspaper=The Guardian}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Stockley |first=Philippa |title=The V&A's new furniture gallery |url=http://www.homesandproperty.co.uk/property_news/events_and_getaways/victoriaalbertmuseumfurnituregallery.html |access-date=14 December 2012 |newspaper=Evening Standard: Homes and Property |date=29 November 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130117004428/http://www.homesandproperty.co.uk/property_news/events_and_getaways/victoriaalbertmuseumfurnituregallery.html |archive-date=17 January 2013}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last1=Arad |first1=Ron |title=Bookworm |date=1993 |url=https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O145097/bookworm-bookshelf-arad-ron/ |access-date=2024-10-05 |last2=Kartell}}</ref>

The furniture collection, while covering Europe and America from the Middle Ages to the present, is predominantly British, dating between 1700 and 1900.<ref>''Western Furniture: 1350 To the Present Day In the Victoria and Albert Museum London'', Christopher Wilk 1996</ref> Many of the finest examples are displayed in the British Galleries, including pieces by Chippendale, Adam, Morris, and Mackintosh.<ref>{{cite web |title=London Museums |url=http://www.londonschool.com/po/experience-london/museums/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110220222130/http://www.londonschool.com/po/experience-london/museums/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=20 February 2011 |publisher=[[London School of Economics]] |access-date=14 December 2012}}</ref> One of the oldest objects is a chair leg from [[Middle Egypt]] dated to 200-395AD.<ref name=guardian/><ref>{{cite web |title=Leg from a stool or chair |url=https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O321535/leg-from-a-unknown/ |publisher=V&A Collections Online |access-date=14 December 2012}}</ref>

The Furniture and Woodwork collection also includes complete rooms, musical instruments, and clocks. Among the rooms owned by the museum are the Boudoir of Madame de Sévilly (Paris, 1781–82) by [[Claude Nicolas Ledoux]], with painted panelling by [[Jean Simeon Rousseau de la Rottière]];<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/r/rococo-and-neo-classicism,-europe-1700-1800,-room-5,-level-0/ |title=Image&nbsp;– V&A |publisher=vam.ac.uk |access-date=21 August 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110812082301/http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/r/rococo-and-neo-classicism,-europe-1700-1800,-room-5,-level-0/ |archive-date=12 August 2011 |url-status=dead }}</ref> and Frank Lloyd Wright's Kaufmann Office, designed and constructed between 1934 and 1937 for the owner of a Pittsburgh department store.<ref>Wilk, Christopher, ''Frank Lloyd Wright: The Kaufmann Office'', 1993.</ref>

The collection includes pieces by William Kent, [[Henry Flitcroft]], [[Matthias Lock]], [[James Stuart (1713–1788)|James Stuart]], [[William Chambers (architect)|William Chambers]], John Gillow, James Wyatt, [[Thomas Hopper (architect)|Thomas Hopper]], [[Charles Heathcote Tatham]], Pugin, [[William Burges]], [[Charles Voysey (architect)|Charles Voysey]], [[Charles Robert Ashbee]], [[Baillie Scott]], Edwin Lutyens, [[Edward Maufe]], [[Wells Coates]] and [[Robin Day (designer)|Robin Day]]. The museum also hosts the national collection of wallpaper, which is looked after by the Prints, Drawings and Paintings department.<ref>{{Citation |last1=Coates |first1=Wells OBE |title=Desk |date=1933 |url=https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O129263/desk-coates-wells-obe/ |access-date=2024-10-05 |last2=Pel Limited – Pel Furniture}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |title=Robin Day |url=https://collections.vam.ac.uk/search/?page=1&page_size=15&q=Robin+Day |access-date=2024-10-05 |website=Victoria and Albert Museum |language=en}}</ref>

The Soulages collection of Italian and French Renaissance objects was acquired between 1859 and 1865, and includes several [[cassone]]. The John Jones Collection of French 18th-century art and furnishings was left to the museum in 1882, then valued at £250,000. One of the most important pieces in this collection is a [[marquetry]] [[commode]] by the ''[[ébéniste]]'' [[Jean Henri Riesener]] dated c1780. Other signed pieces of furniture in the collection include a [[Desk|bureau]] by [[Jean-François Oeben]], a pair of pedestals with inlaid brass work by [[André Charles Boulle]], a commode by Bernard Vanrisamburgh and a work-table by [[Martin Carlin]]. Other 18th-century ébénistes represented in the museum collection include [[Adam Weisweiler]], [[David Roentgen]], [[Gilles Joubert]] and Pierre Langlois. In 1901, Sir George Donaldson donated several pieces of [[art Nouveau]] furniture to the museum, which he had acquired the previous year at the Paris [[Exposition Universelle (1900)|Exposition Universelle]]. This was criticised at the time, with the result that the museum ceased to collect contemporary pieces and did not do so again until the 1960s. In 1986 the Lady Abingdon collection of French Empire furniture was bequeathed by Mrs T. R. P. Hole.

There are a set of beautiful inlaid doors, dated 1580 from [[Antwerp City Hall]], attributed to [[Hans Vredeman de Vries]]. One of the finest pieces of continental furniture in the collection is the Rococo Augustus Rex Bureau Cabinet dated c1750 from Germany, with especially fine marquetry and [[ormolu]] mounts. One of the grandest pieces of 19th-century furniture is the highly elaborate French Cabinet dated 1861–1867 made by M. Fourdinois, made from ebony inlaid with box, lime, holly, pear, walnut and mahogany woods as well as marble with gilded carvings. Furniture designed by [[Ernest Gimson]], [[Edward William Godwin]], Charles Voysey, [[Adolf Loos]] and [[Otto Wagner]] are among the late 19th-century and early 20th-century examples in the collection. The work of modernists in the collection include [[Le Corbusier]], [[Marcel Breuer]], [[Charles and Ray Eames]], and [[Giò Ponti]].

One of the oldest clocks in the collection is an astronomical clock of 1588 by Francis Nowe. One of the largest is James Markwick the younger's [[longcase clock]] of 1725, nearly 3 metres in height and [[japanned]]. Other clockmakers with work in the collection include: [[Thomas Tompion]], [[Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy]], John Ellicott and William Carpenter.

<gallery>
File:WLA vanda French Commode in Japanese lacquer.jpg|[[Joseph Baumhauer|Baumhauer, Joseph]]—Commode, with panels of Japanese lacquer & vernis martin, French, 1760–65
File:Evelyncabinet.jpg|[[John Evelyn's cabinet|The Evelyn Cabinet]]—Inlaid with panels of Florentine pietre dure; Italy, 1644–46
File:WLA vanda Cabinet on stand.jpg|Cabinet on stand, German, {{circa|1580}}
</gallery>