Victoria and Albert Museum

To complete my trilogy of great London Museums I spend this morning in the European cast courts, a rather unsexy title for a very beautiful space. Plaster casts were made of great pieces of sculpture and design, so that Londoners could make their 'Grand Tour" without leaving South Kensington.

These rather sleepy but sweet (I think) griffins support the Portico de la Gloria in Santiago de Compostella. Or at least the V&A's plaster cast of it.