Well we hit the bonanza at the Victoria & Albert Museum; we saw all six paintings, #409 to #414!  All of the paintings were by Mughal artists.  As you can see by the photos these are different from Western art.  The curator who showed us the paintings wasn’t 30 years old.  She was very nice and told us a bit about the paintings.  The Mughal emperors had books made to instruct their sons, and these paintings were part of the different volumes that different emperors had made.  The back of each painting has a narrative about the story from each book.  The paintings are from the mid 16^th to the mid 17^th century.  You can’t see in from the photos, but the detail in these paintings is remarkable.  The curator loaned us a magnifying glass so we could examine the paintings.  Even the small flowers are painted in exacting detail.  We are always amazed that we are able to see these fragile works of art.  She explained that making these works of art to people is part of the museums mission.  I imagine that students are the people that normally ask to see these objects and that we are not their usual visitor.  But we are thankful that they showed these paintings to us.

The V&A is quite a place, if you like museums, which we do.  In addition to art it is a museum of decorative art and design.  Everything from jewelry, clothing, furniture, etc.  We will rest up tomorrow because we have a bit of a trip scheduled for Thursday, a couple of trains to two different cities for two different museums.

Aug 18 2014 London