The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) has lent more than 70 of its medieval treasures, including the famous Becket coffin, to an exhibition at the Al Thani Collection space in Paris, which houses and displays works belonging to Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al Thani, cousin of the Emir of Qatar.
The show, Medieval treasures of the Victoria and Albert Museum: When the English spoke French open June 30 (until October 22), highlighting “the complex and interdependent relationships of England and continental Europe throughout the Middle Ages,” a statement read. It includes sculpture, textiles, ceramics, manuscript illumination, metalwork and jewelry.
Amin Jaffer, Director of the Al Thani Collection and former V&A Curator, said in a statement: “The majority of the works featured in this exhibition reflect a time when the rulers of England spoke primarily French. Indeed, the Norman monarchs who succeeded William the Conqueror remained linked to their origins, establishing the French language at court and spreading its use through a newly imposed political, military and ecclesiastical elite of France.
Other works shipped by the V&A, in one of its most important loan exhibitions in recent years, include the 12th Century Gloucester candle holderdescribed as a “masterpiece of English goldsmithing”, and the syon face (1300-20), a cloak worn by a priest covered in red and green silks, which is considered a masterpiece of English embroidery.
The Al Thani Collection, which belongs to Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah, has been exhibited in a dedicated museum space at the Hôtel de la Marine since the end of 2021. In 2018, the Al Thani Collection Foundation signed an agreement with the Center des Monuments Nationaux, the public establishment which manages nearly 100 monuments across France, which authorizes 400 m² of exhibition space at the Hôtel de la Marine for the next 20 years, would have in exchange for 1 million euros each year, although a spokesperson for the collection says this figure has not been officially confirmed.
The terms of the arrangement between the V&A and the Al Thani Collection remain confidential, but a spokesperson for the Al Thani Collection said: “As is standard international museum practice for projects such as this, the Foundation of the Al Thani collection has made an appropriate contribution to cover all costs related to the staging of the exhibition in Paris.
James Robinson, co-curator of the exhibition and Head of the Sculpture and Decorative Arts Department at the V&A, said in a statement: “The V&A has a longstanding relationship with His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al Thani and the Al Thani collection that led to this collaboration.
An agreement has been reached for the V&A to develop a series of three exhibitions for the Al Thani Collection space at the Hôtel de la Marine, he adds, saying: “We have been invited to submit ideas for the first of these exhibitions, on the medieval period. , which would showcase some of the museum’s undoubted masterpieces.
