The “Oriental Court” at the South Kensington Museum

In 1852, when non-European objects were primarily placed in ethnographic exhibitions, the Museum of Practical Art (the origin of V&A Museum) was the first to display an extensive collection of non-Western objects for their aesthetic values. Since it moved to South Kensington Gore (1857), the Museum has undergone many changes. As part of a rearrangement and expansion process in the mid-1860s, it added an “Oriental Court” to house objects from China, Japan, India, Persia, etc. Designed by the renowned theorist of ornament, Owen Jones, the galleries were decorated by geometric patterns and motives from “the Orient.” Jones’ design was unanimously praised as an appropriate decoration for its content. From a given point, it was a successful realization of a mid-nineteenth-century interest in communicating the style through the gallery decoration. However, this practice of historicizing the gallery space contradicted the South Kensington Museum’s original mission, which emphasized aesthetic values over art historical concerns. In fact, despite some moves towards art history, the Museum had maintained its original material-based arrangement. Regardless of the broad category of the “Orient,” the Oriental Court was a rather unique, art historical classification that grouped objects together based on their place of origin. This paper would discuss the conflict between the Design Reform theories and art histories of the time to explore some roles of the Oriental Court in framing non-European objects at this early public museum of decorative art.