2-721-330 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'East Dining or Grill Room', c1860s, (1881). View showing the interior decoration in the Grill Room (now the Poynter Room) of the South Kensington Museum, (later renamed the Victoria & Albert Museum) in London. One wall featured a cast-iron range with an open grill, with 'hot chambers' on either side where plates were warmed. The upper walls of the dining room were decorated with panels of glazed ceramic tiles representing the months and seasons, designed by the painter Edward J. Poynter. The tiles were painted by female students of a special porcelain class for ladies at the National Art Training School, an unusual public commission for women in this period. 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]