OWEN JONES AND THE V&A

Including previously unpublished and recently re-discovered designs for the interior of the Museum, Olivia Horsfall Turner's fascinating new book, the latest in the 19th Century Series, looks at the relationship between architect and designer Owen Jones and the South Kensington Museum in the period from the Museum’s establishment in the 1850s to Jones's death in 1874. It focuses on three key moments in Jones's relationship with the Museum: the creation of his booksThe Grammar of Ornament (1856) and Examples of Chinese Ornament (1867), and the decoration of the Museum's so-called Oriental Court between 1863 and 1865. Jones’s collaboration with the Museum over a period of almost 20 years is of special interest not only thanks to his status as a leading design theorist, but also for the light that it sheds on how the early Museum formed its identity. Plans to memorialise Owen Jones after his death with a wall mosaic at the V&A were sadly never realised, but they serve as testimony to his close association with the Museum and his role as one of the most influential design theorists of the 19th century.