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Ethiopian Objects at the Victoria and Albert Museum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2022

Alexandra Jones
Alexandra Jones*
Affiliation:
Curator of Maqdala 1868, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
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Extract

The Victoria and Albert Museum, or V&A, is a museum of art, design and performance based in South Kensington, London. It was established in 1852, following on from the 1851 “Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations” spearheaded by Prince Albert. The museum's collections today number over 2.7 million objects, amassed over the past 150 years through active collecting. Amongst them is a small but very significant collection of Ethiopian material, which tells a story about the complex relationship between Britain and Ethiopia during the 19th century, as well as prompting much discussion about how African collections and objects associated with military expeditions are displayed and interpreted by UK museums today.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Research and Documentation , Volume 135: Special Issue: Archives and Collections for/in Ethiopian Studies , 2019 , pp. 8 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © African Research & Documentation 2019

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