"Found at the museum's northwest corner, this is the appropriately named ceramic staircase. I've often wandered up and down the stairs and assumed without really thinking about it that they must have been saved from some grand house or official building somewhere. After all, the museum is full of such saved fragments, and even entire rooms. However, when I finally thought to read the sign on the stairs explaining them, I was in for a surprise."
"The ceramic staircase was purpose-built for the museum, and in fact, the whole museum is supposed to look like it. Constructed as part of the first stage of building between 1865-69 (some say 1871), the museum's first director, Sir Henry Cole, had intended that the entire museum be decorated in such an opulent manner. But spiralling costs meant that only a small portion was completed."
"The staircase was designed by Francis Wollaston Moody, a member of staff in the Museum's design studio and a lecturer in the adjoining School of Art, and once led to the school via the ceramics gallery, although these days it leads to the silverware gallery. The ceramics were produced by Staffordshire-based Minton in a style known as 'Della Robbia' ware after the Florentine family of sculptors and ceramicists who perfected it in the 14th and 15th centuries."
The V&A contains many architectural fragments, but the ceramic staircase at the northwest corner was created specifically for the museum. Construction took place during the first building phase in 1865–69 (some sources give 1871). Sir Henry Cole intended the whole museum to be richly decorated, but spiralling costs limited completion. Decorative elements were stripped back in 1914 and later restored in 1995, leaving the staircase in its original state as it marks its 160th birthday. Francis Wollaston Moody designed the staircase. Staffordshire-based Minton produced the ceramics in a Della Robbia style, and students helped create the decorations as part of training.
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