2-721-202 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'Central Door, South Kensington Museum', c1860s, (1881). Original bronze front entrance doors to the South Kensington Museum, (later renamed the Victoria & Albert Museum), in London. Above, in the carved stone frame, is the maxim 'Better is it to get wisdom than gold', an allusion to one of the Museum's principle aims: education. The left door shows three figures from the history of science: Humphry Davy, Isaac Newton and James Watt, and on the right are three from the arts: Bramante, Michelangelo and Titian. The doors were modelled by James Gamble and Reuben Townroe, based on designs by Godfrey Sykes. Woodcut after Godfrey Sykes. From "The South Kensington Museum", a book of engraved illustrations, with descriptions, of the works of art in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum. [Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, London, 1881]