Henry Cole and the Chamber of Horrors/The Victoria and Albert Museum

Two very different publications from London’s Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) begin from the same point, but then quickly go their own ways.

Their common starting point is not their introductions by the museum’s director, Mark Jones, but the founding of the V&A, described as 1837 in one and “in the wake of the [1851] Great Exhibition” in the other. Curiously enough, the V&A’s website has 1857 as the museum’s foundation date, while the American Friends’ site settles for 1852.

Wile Lucy Trench’s Victoria and Albert Museum sets off on a sweeping journey through the V&A’s wonderfully eclectic collections, Christopher Frayling remains at the start, his eye caught by an introductory room at Henry Cole’s 1852 exhibition at Marlborough House.

Cole, a central figure in the organisation of the Great Exhibition, had just been appointed general superintendent of the Government School of Design.

Riding the wave of interest in contemporary design and new technology, he sought from the start to impose on design training what he called the “general principles of decorative art”, central to which was the hypothesis that “ornament ought always to be secondary to utility”.

To make his point in a practical way, Cole organised an exhibition in the school’s new museum in Marlborough House, a precursor of the V&A.

This aimed to show why some design was good, while some was founded on “false principles”. The exhibition itself sounds rather modest – with work of students at the school and an assortment of purchases from the 1851 exhibition, supplemented by objects from the royal collections.

What caught the public’s imagination, and now the attention of Frayling, was the show’s first gallery, entitled Decorations on False Principles, soon to become popularly known as the Chamber of Horrors.

The phrase first appeared in an unattributed article in the Times (of which Cole himself may well have been the author), which went on to describe the 87 objects in this introductory gallery as exhibiting “false principles of design such as vulgar and inharmonious colouring, want of meaning and unity in pattern, graceless imitations of natural forms, etc.”

Sadly, the majority of the original 87 exhibits have been mislaid during the course of the 150 years since this exhibition was mounted. Frayling has been able to track down 17 of them and a varied bunch they are – wallpaper decorated with railway scenes; chintz, heavy with flowers; a papier-mâché tray decorated with a Landseer painting; and a gas burner in the shape of a convolvulus flower.

Much of what Cole decries would now be seen as highly desirable Victoriana; kitsch, but quite collectable. I rather like the convolvulus gas burner – and I suspect that Frayling does, too.

And he notes that it was John Ruskin who reminded his contemporaries that besides the head and the hand, there was a third ‘h’ in the creation of “thoroughly perfect art” – the heart.

There’s much else in Frayling’s enjoyable book. Perhaps there’s too much – certainly there’s a great deal of repetition, including three identical drawings of Cole’s terrier, Jim. Tighter editing would have helped – so too would the inclusion of an index.

Trench’s book is a much glossier affair and it provides an elegant introduction to one of the world’s great museums of decorative art. Given the size of the V&A’s collection, it is inevitable that it’s a high-level view. The text aims to contextualise the many elements of the collection, while the excellent photographs put flesh on the bones.

Both books contain memorable photographs of objects from the collection, but also from the history of the museum itself. For me, one stands out – a powerful photograph of Cole, taken in 1870 when he was 62. Somehow he makes it clear that he will continue to make his presence known across Albertopolis.

Timothy Mason is a museum consultant