“We could always move into the hall. There’s no use crowding the trunks.” — Ginger Rogers to Katharine Hepburn (and her trunks) in Stage Door.
1) One has to be agile to stay in a room that is 85% bed. How the housekeepers manage here I have no idea.
1a) My snore score was off the charts, proof that I’m not traveling with my wedge pillow. I requested extra pillows so as not to deafen anyone else on this floor.
2) The hotel lobby conveniently adjoins a Caffé Nero, so I was able to stumble in and barely remembered to order a “flat white” rather than just say “coffee, please,” and a croissant.
Russell Square Underground station. As in “exit,” not as in “Far out!”
3) The morning was chillier than I dressed for, especially in the shade, but I knew it would warm up. Then it was time to negotiate the Underground, destination the Victoria and Albert Museum. The Piccadilly line would get me there, but first I had to disable a ticket machine by pulling my card out before it had been authorized. Oopsie.
3a) Then for some reason my ticket wouldn’t work in the turnstile. And when I showed it to the man he looked at me with That Look and said “That’s the receipt.”
4) You really move down into the bowels of the earth, but at Russell Square you get there in an elevator. And the train showed up almost at once, and whoosh, I was at South Kensington.
4a) Once through the turnstile, the quickest way to the V&A was through a large underground tunnel paved and paneled with sand-colored tile from about 120 years ago. Plodding along with the commuters, I noticed an exit directly to the natural history museum. Soon thereafter, an identical entrance for my destination! But it felt dicey to wait down there, so I headed to the front entrance anyway, and stood in the sun reading Chasing Beauty until 10 AM.
The showstopper. No photograph can do it justice. Must be seen to be believed.
5) The Cartier exhibition was magnificent, as expected. My English friends had just seen it and complained about a) the crowds, and b) the tiny type on the placards, which were set so low everyone had their bums out. My experience with the crowds was less bothersome (except in the first gallery), but then I was there on a weekday first thing in the morning. As to the placards, they had a point. Everyone should spend a week on an intense gluteus workout before seeing this show.
5a) Aside from the jewels, the names of the owners (previous or current) added to the fun: Consuelo, Duchess of Marlborough; Freddie Mercury, the Duchess of Manchester, Barbara Hutton, Edwina Mountbatten, Queen Alexandra, Doris Duke, Phyllis Brand, and of course That Woman. I know I’m missing some names that made me go “Ah!” A few pieces were “Lent by His Majesty the King,” but a surprising number came from the Cartier Collection itself.
In the words of the late Aunt Alycia, “It is a yellow diamond of the first quality.” In my words, “What a rock to hock!”
5b) But the jewels! Ravishing. The unquestioned showstopper for me was the ceremonial necklace and choker of the Maharajah Bhupinder Singh of Patiala. Rows and rows of gigantic diamonds. Impossible to look anywhere else. I could really understand someone being blinded by the light.
The Duchess of Manchester tiara with its special light.
5c) I am getting ahead of myself. The exhibition opened with the Duchess of Manchester’s tiara all by itself in a glass cylinder. Because diamonds sparkle in the light, the tiara was orbited by a tiny satellite light (a sattellight? Haw!) which made a beautiful effect. And it’s nice to know that the Duchess was just a Louisiana girl, Consuelo Yznaga of Ravenswood Plantation, Concordia Parish. (It’s not my fault she was born in New York; she was totally raised in Louisiana.)
The gasp-inducing snake necklace, exhibited alone in its own room.
5d) Blah blah jewels, blah blah jewels. I could go on and on saying “Gee don’t it sparkle?” like that chorus girl in The Great Ziegfeld. Surprises? A few: That Woman’s panther lorgnette, a suite of peridot jewels, an unbelievably lifelike snake necklace commissioned by a Mexican actress (diamonds on top, rubies and sapphires below), and a pair of diamond wisteria brooches.
Phyllis Brand’s exquisite tiara of carved turquoise.
5e) Quite possibly my favorite piece was the carved turquoise tiara the economist Bob Brand gave to his wife Phyllis, née Langhorne, one of the famous Langhorne sisters of Virginia. Phyllis’s favorite sister was also the most famous, Lady Nancy Astor. I remembered it from the 2000 tiara exhibition at home. This would have suited her blonde good looks superbly.
6) Dazzled by all that jewelry, of course nothing in the shop could satisfy me the way a tuna sandwich and a bottle of water could in the courtyard. There’s a wide shallow pool there, which is just begging for children to frolic in it. I noticed two little girls, perhaps three or four years of age. They could have been little Frida Kahlos shrunk in the wash, with their long dark hair caught into what might have been French braids, and their high-necked long-sleeved dressed. One little girl’s dress appeared to be gold lamé — how could her mother have allowed this before 5 PM?
7) The next several hours I walked my legs off in an orgy of art appreciation. Sculpture, bits of architecture, a Korean moon jar (God, I would love a Korean moon jar, but I’m trying to get things out of my house, not in), the Bed of Ware, embroidery of my beloved Mary Queen of Scots, color, light, beauty, and occasionally pulchritude.
Pulchritude can show up anywhere in a museum, including what Daniel would call the Housewares Department.
8) Wearily plodding up the stairs, I realized I’d almost missed the most important thing: more jewelry! The V&A’s own jewelry collection is pretty darn impressive, and I drank it all in.
9) Another surprise: an exhibition of theatre costumes, including — you will never believe it — Ginger Rogers’ mink dress from Lady in the Dark! (Just nod and say “Yes, dear.”) (It’s a sin and shame that Gertrude Lawrence didn’t make this movie, otherwise we’d still be taking about it.) An Edith Head design, it was the most expensive costume ever made for a Hollywood film.
The famous mink dress designed by Edith Head for Ginger Rogers in Lady in the Dark.
10) Then I reached sort of the Exhausted Magpie stage of my visit: fascinated and distracted by every Shiny New Thing — old stained glass, monumental pieces of silver — but my legs and feet kept telling me “Enough!” So back I plodded through that yellow-paved tunnel to the Tube, and my hotel.
This kind of expresses my energy at the end of my museum visit.
11) Later, I wandered into a pub for dinner, and had my first fish and chips. I feel like I could use a tutorial on how to eat them properly.
12) Retracing my steps, I paused to enjoy Tavistock Square, famous as a former home of Virginia Woolf. A statue of Gandhi takes pride of place at the center. Around the periphery it looks like they have elevated vines of . . . who knows what, grapes, wisteria. Summer will tell. It was beautiful at that time of evening.
13) I spent the evening very aware of my legs and lower back, pretenting to write.
