Review of the Gilbert Gallery at the Victoria and Albert Museum – a fascinating treasure that must be seen to be believed | art

WWe periodically hear when a masterpiece is “saved for the nation,” usually when a museum has to raise enormous sums to prevent the export or sale of a work of art considered to be of national importance. Museums also sometimes purchase at auction for the same purpose. However, they swim in a pond among the wealthy, as many record sales that make the news later disappear into someone’s yacht or bathroom.

It is this market that makes it a momentous occasion when an entire private collection is bequeathed to a nation, usually after the death of its donors. From the 19th-century Wallace Collection to the Holborn Museum in Bath’s acquisition of the Schroeder Treasure in 2025, museums are custodians of collections of a quality that can only be acquired with capital that greatly exceeds their own. How they choose to give that gift is an organizational issue in itself.

Sir Arthur Gilbert inherited the Gilbert Collection on the death of his first wife, Rosalind, in 1995. It was held by Somerset House in 2000 and passed to the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2008. The couple began as fashion entrepreneurs in wartime London before moving to Los Angeles in 1949 where Arthur achieved success as a property developer. The 1,000-plus-piece collection began in the 1960s driven by a love of what Rosalinde called “beautiful things,” a somewhat superficial description of her collecting standards of superior craftsmanship on a small scale. These included European decorative works in gold and silver, Italian mosaics and enamel miniatures, and were associated with historical figures including Tsarina Catherine II of Russia or Napoleon. Frederick the Great’s 1765 mother-of-pearl snuff box covered in gold, rubies and hard stones? Checks. Enamelled miniature of Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, 1781? Checks.

In collaboration with architecture firm Citizens Design Bureau, the Victoria and Albert Museum has expanded the number of rooms housing the Gilbert Collection from four to seven, showcasing nearly half the collection, with rooms arranged by craft. The size of the silver display has been reduced – a boon for those suffering from gloss fatigue from the V&A’s already wider collections – with fine mosaics now occupying two galleries. These mosaics, built from small-scale pieces of glass, are so illusory than “ordinary paintings”, they have to be seen to be believed. Whereas previously only one copy of an item was on display, for example, a snuff box showing Pliny’s doves, we now have many more.

However, the reopening is all the more significant because it reflects a changing collective conscience among museums as custodians of world artifacts, and a move toward recognizing and interpreting the way items have been acquired in the past. UK museums generally have a non-accession policy, which means resisting international pressure to return disputed objects such as the Parthenon Marbles or Benin Bronzes. Instead, they engage in long-term loans or diplomatic exchanges.

However, Gilbert’s presentation focuses on the idea of ​​provenance and how our perception of this word has evolved throughout the history of the plural, while focusing more on the couple’s personal experiences and stories. Surprisingly, there is no legal requirement for auction houses to include the full unedited provenance in their catalogues; The industry has long operated on the idea of ​​trust, and at the beginning of the Gilbert family purchases this simply meant “prestigious ownership.” Scattered across Europe and beyond, tendrils of items looted by the Nazis continue to cause headaches for those who handle them and pain for the descendants of their original owners. Museum exhibits have paid little attention to this issue; For example, approximately 100 paintings looted by the Nazis on display in the Louvre are designated only by the letters MNR: Musées nationalaux récupération.

The Victoria and Albert Museum established the role of curator of provenance and provenance in 2018, with funding from the Gilbert Arts Trust – the charity set up to manage the Gilbert Collection. Most surprising here are the new dual captions drawn from their research that directly address Nazi ownership: one indicating what was known about the object’s provenance at first acquisition, and then the full story, often detailing how the items were taken by force. That Gilbert’s family is of Jewish descent adds a complexity of emotion to the project. The same goes for fakes and knock-offs: secondary captions provide scientific and historical research identifying places where items are less than authentic: The Tabernacle was blown up in 1580 into various “real” and “less-than-real” parts. For a market that has long been ashamed of discovering that an owner has collected invalid items, this level of shame represents a sea change that now looks set to be applied to the rest of the V&A’s collections. The wider heritage industry should take into account.

There is certainly enormous pleasure to be had from contemplating the magnificent treasures in a beautifully spacious gallery, complete with tangible examples of gold and fine mosaics for those who simply cannot take off their gloves, but that is of secondary importance here. When retrieval is not an option, it is best instead to encourage the visitor to think about how and why they look at the item in front of them, and to question labels as received gospel in their experience of going to the museum.