The Vic & Alb

When one enters the unique Victoria & Albert Museum in London, this is what one sees. A stunning chandelier by glass artist Dale Chihuly. I believe it weighs a few tons and is made of 1,000 parts. Incredible.

The museum mostly houses decorative arts but is quite an amalgam of oddities (not so much oddities as one might find in a Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum, but random objects of interest one might not expect to find in a museum). Like these plaster casts of sarcophagi.

This is a bust of Mel Gibson playing some British king or someone like that. You know, Gary IV or something like that. OK, it has nothing to do with Mel Gibson and it goes against my own personal grain to even mention him now that he's gone all über-Catholic and all. But it's a particularly lifelike sculpture from about 400 years ago.

An illuminated bench, actually. See the parquet floor through it and my camera reflected in the glass or lucite.

Some more blown glass I found whilst hunting for more Chihuly.

They, like the Met, have a Costume Institute of sorts. These are new designs based on some styles from the fifties.