ASTRO 8 friction-powered flying saucer with wheels. Pressed mild steel and plastic, red with a blue fin. Its wheels powered lights that shine though plastic windows and plastic dome. DAN DARE SPACE CONTROL RADIO STATION battery-powered futuristic central console and 2 handsets. The console is grey plastic with aerials, knobs, dial, and lever for tapping Morse code. Wires with jacks connect the console to its red plastic handsets. MOON EXPLORER battery-powered rocket-like vehicle of tin-plated mild steel, in red and white. Its clear plastic window shows an astronaut. The back has three fins. MOON ROCKET mechanical spacecraft of tin-plated, silver amd red pressed mild steel. Pressing the nose triggers the rocket to push itself upright and reveal an astronaut as it lowers its ramp. Photos: Victoria & Albert Museum. See some of the above, and others like them at the V&A's Young V&A site. Acquisition numbers B.53:1 to 3-2005, B.50:1 to 3-2005, B80:1 to 5-2016, and B.52:1 to 3-2005.

What adventurous setting inspired many children's toys? Outer space!

Toys from the 2 decades in which human spaceflight went from science fiction to reality—the 1950s and 1960s—added lights and sound, while Japan's toy manufacturers perfected the small motors […]

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This brass curfew is embossed with scenes from the lives of two saints: St Laurence and possibly St Francis. It's an oval brass dome, with a width and depth of about 30 by 55 centimeters (12 by 21 inches), and a height of about 40 centimetres (16 inches), including the handle. It's embossed in 3D with an image of Saint Lawrence, and inscribed "S LARENTIUS 1627" for Saint Laurence and the year of manufacture. This curfew is on display in Victoria and Albert Museum's metalware galleries of its South Kensington site. Photo: V&A.

How did 1600s Dutch households keep their fire embers from going out at night? With a curfew.

Yes, it's a pun. Curfews were metal covers that kept fire embers smouldering overnight, to be revived for the next day's cooking and heating. The word curfew comes from […]

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Photos: Victoria and Albert Museum. Merged and edited into one photo for this post. Accession number C.2536-1910: a mould-blown, blue glass bottle, tubular and swelling slightly toward the shoulders, with a narrow neck that's flared at the top. It is about 12½ centimetres (5 inches) by 3½ centimetres (1⅓ inches) at its widest. It was made in the Roman style, possibly in Egypt, in the 5th century (400 to 499 AD). Accession number 1914-1897: are two blown-glass, tubular bottles of coloured glass, about 10 centimetres (4 inches) by 2½ centimetres (1 inch) at its widest. They were made in the Roman style in Egypt in late 3rd to 4th century (275 to 399 AD) and excavated at Oxyrhynchus in 1896.

Would you carry plant oil and perfume in tiny bottles around your neck? Romans did.

Perfume was used for its sensual pleasure, but also burned with offerings to appease the gods, and to ward off disease.

Rather than alcohol, the base of Roman perfume was oil […]

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Full-scale design for Pino Spagnolo Design Snc, showing sketches of a pizza cutter, bottle opener, and melon scoop with multiple perspectives of the handles, and with handles of different form and colours. As well, a full-scale, glossy presentation drawing of a pizza cutter and a bottle opener. The designs are from about 1991, the presentation drawing from 1994. Sketch designs for a pizza cutter, a bottle opener and a melon scoop, with , full scale, with two perspective sketches of handles. The designs are in pencil and felt-tip pen on a photostatic print. The presentation drawing is airbrushed over a pencil drawing on paper. The design sketch is on 42×30 centimetre paper (16½×12 inches) and the presentation drawing is 35×25 centimetre paper (about 14×10 inches). To view these drawings, make an appointment with the Prints & Drawings room at V&A's South Kensington site to see objects R.701-1997, E.705-1997, E.709-1997, E.710-1997.

What does it take to design artistic mass-market goods? Producibility.

For his designs of household appliances and kitchen gadgets, Italian Pino Spagnolo looked beyond aesthetic and emotional factors to the cost of materials, which affects the final price of the […]

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A bamboo, thread, and silk pellet bow made in Lahore, India, probably in the first half of the 18th century. The bow is about 1½ metres or 58 inches long. This is object 3463(IS) in the Victoria and Albert Museum's collections of arms and armour, and of objects from South and Southeast Asia. You can view this and other pellet bows by appointment at the V&A East Storehouse, in London. Photo: V&A.

What could a bow shoot, besides arrows? Stones or pellets.

Pellet bows propel a pebble or clay pellet from a silk pouch on a double string.

The artistry is both in making the bow and string and in the shooting technique, or khatra. On releasing the string and […]

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This 1957 photo of Eartha Kitt is part of the Harry Hammond Photographic Collection og 9,000 photos and negatives, which the artist gifted to the V&A in the 1980s for its Theatre and Performance collection. Photo: Victoria and Albert Museum, likely printed and digitised in 2009. The negative isn't available to view in person. You can see a high-resolution photo (S.12492-2009) and others like it, in the V&A's online catalogue, right now: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/search/?images_exist=true&page=1&page_size=50&q=Kitt

What was singer Eartha Kitt known for, besides the definitive rendition of Santa Baby? Acting and activism.

There's her growling purr, a half-dozen songs on the 1950s pop charts, roles on stage and screen—famously as Catwoman to TV's Batman—and as a voice actor […]

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A biscuit tin from V&A Museum's metalwork collection, mass produced with offset-lithography printed on embossed tinplate, in the form of a bell. The surface imitates oxidised copper. The handle of this bell lifts to reveal the container's contents. The bell is embossed with decorative detail and the text, "When Ye Doe Ringe, I Sweetly Sing". This tin was given by M. J. Franklin. Dimensions: almost 20 centimeters or 7 inches high, and about 16 centimeters or 6 inches in diameter at the base. Photo credit: Victoria & Albert Museum. To see part of its extensive biscuit tin metalworks collection, visit the V&A's South Kensington site, in London.

Can a cookie tin be a work of decorative art? Yes.

When the UK's Licensed Grocer's Act of 1861 first allowed the sale of individually packaged groceries, decorative cookie tins ("biscuit tins" in the UK) got their start. These simple metal boxes were soon […]

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A black-and-white portrait of Jimi Hendrix, printed on photographic paper, by Linda Eastman-McCartney. Hendrix has dark, curly hair, sunglasses up to his mouth, head facing the camera but eyes glancing to the viewer's left. His coat collar is turned up, and he's wearing a paisley scarf. The photo, just under 60×45 centimeters (or 24×18 inches), was gifted by Sir Paul McCartney to V&A's Photography Centre. You can ask to see this photo in the Prints & Drawings room of V&A Museum's South Kensington site, in London, UK.

Which rock guitarist only took up playing at age 20? Jimi Hendrix.

Hendrix grew up poor and Black in the USA's Pacific northwest. At 19, he found himself in court facing a choice of 3 years in prison or 2 years in the Army—during the Vietnam war. He chose Army […]

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A parure, or jewellery set, that includes (clockwise from top left) a tiara, a comb, one a pair of earrings, and a necklace. Each piece has extensive gold metalwork and hardstone mosaic insets of lapis lazuli, chalcedony, calcedonio di Volterra burnt to deepen its colour, "pearls" of rock-crystal half-beads set with the flat surface up and coated on the underside with silver leaf. The hardstone mosaics depict shells, which were themselves valued as material for carving cameos and other finery. Photo: Victoria and Albert Museum. These objects cannot currently be viewed.

A close-up of a hardstone mosaic of two shells, possibly conches. One shell is orange with white stripes, the other is white. The mosaic is part of the necklace described in the ALT text of the other image. Photo: Victoria and Albert Museum. These objects cannot currently be viewed.

Which relative did Napoleon execute? A brother-in-law.

Carolina, said to resemble her brother in political astuteness, lost her husband due to her own ambitious miscalculation. Carolina's rise began at 17 with her marriage to Napoleon's officer, Joachim Murat […]

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Photo of a squat, spherical beer jug with a narrow cylindrical neck on top. The whole is about 23 centimeters tall (about 9 inches) and almost as wide at its globe. It is stoneware, so made of fired clay. The jug is cream in colour, or light beige. Only the narrow, cylindrical neck—the top 30% of the jug—is glazed, in dark brown. The jug's bulbous body is decorated in low relief of two figures. One figure (right) is a kneeling slave, with curled hair and simply dressed, reaching an arm toward the other figure (left), comfortably seated and reaching back with one arm. The left figure wears the classical Roman style headdress, armour, and spear that identify it as Britannia, a symbolic person who represented Britain at the height of its global empire. Britannia's reaching arm represents a gesture of succour, or help, to the slave. This identifies the theme as abolitionist. The one figure appears to be passing an object to the other—possibly a round fruit. There's a three-masted sailing ship (a slaver?) behind the slave, and trees on either side of the two figures. Around the jug's shoulder, just below the glazed cylindrical neck, is a decorative, horizontal wreath of vine with grapes. Photo: Victoria and Albert Museum. To view the jug, visit V&A's South Kensington site, in room 120 of the Wolfson-British Gallery.

A beer jug promoted anti-slavery? Yes.

John Turner made this jug around the 1800s in what's now Stoke-on-Trent. Then, its coal-fired potteries caused heavy air-pollution and hazardous working conditions typical of England's industrial revolution and continuing […]

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Coloured offset lithographic record sleeve of the Grace Jones LP, or long-play record, Slave to the Rhythm. The image was designed by French photographer and graphic artist Jean-Paul Goude. The record was issued by Island Records in 1985. Photo: Victoria and Albert museum. To view this object, ask to see it at the Prints and Drawings room of V&A's South Kensington site.

Who calls herself "a voracious she-centaur"? Grace Jones.

Known for her distinctive androgynous appearance, bold features, and driving musical style, the Jamaican singer-songwriter started as a model in New York. From New York she went to Paris.

Jones modelled […]

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A 1996 gelatin silver print, a nude photograph of Barry Humphries as Dame Edna Everage. Dame Edna sits astride the chair, backwards, elbows propped atop the back, with the chairback hiding her torso from the camera. Photographer Lewis Morely imitated the nude photo he took 33 years earlier of Christine Keeler on the very same chair. The black-and-white photo is 50×50 centimeters (about 18×18 inches). Photo: Victoria & Albert Museum. To view this and related gelatine silver prints, request them in advance of your visit to the Prints & Drawings room, V&A South Kensington in London.

Excerpt of a 1963 contact sheet showing 9 photos of a roll depicting British model and showgirl Christine Keeler in various poses on a laminated wood chair after the Arne Jacobsen 1955 Danish original. The most infamous is second row, on the left: Keeler sits astride the chair, backwards, elbows propped atop the back, with the chairback hiding her torso from the camera. Some say these black-and-white photos show Keeler unapologetically asserting her sexuality. Keeler did not want to pose naked, but was pressured to do so to comply with the terms of her contract. Photographer Lewis Morley said he asked all observers and representatives to leave the room for the 5 minutes in which the nude Keeler was photographed. The subsequent leaking and exploitative publication of one of the photos contradicts the argument that Keeler’s self-expression was a voice for women’s liberation. A contact sheet is made from negatives, laid directly on a sheet of photo paper, then exposed and developed. Photographers and editors used contact sheets with a magnifying glass to choose which photos to enlarge and print. Negatives themselves, the blacks and whites are inverted, making image quality impossible to assess. Photo: Victoria & Albert Museum. To view this and related gelatine silver prints, request them in advance of your visit to the Prints & Drawings room, V&A South Kensington in London.

The so-called Keeler chair, maker unknown, at left. At right is the Arne Jacobsen 1307 original chair, designed in 1955 in Denmark. Seen on their own, the chairs seem indistinguishable. Seen side-by-side, the differences are apparent. Note the handle, the curves of the back, the dip and front edge of the seat, and the angle of the legs. This design and its copies are one of the most successful chair designs of the twentieth century. They are simple and elegant in form, suitable for mass production, and stackable. Its continuous seat and back were formed from one sheet of moulded teak veneered plywood, bent into curves. The legs are chromium-plated steel tubes held in place by rubber grips. Photo: Vctoria and Albert Museum. View the chairs in V&A East Storehouse, by appointment.

A nude drag queen as political commentary? Yes.

In 1996, Dame Edna Everage (performer Barry Humphries) posed in the nude for Lewis Morley, imitating Christine Keeler's infamous 1963 pose.

Keeler was sexually involved with a UK minister, a Soviet naval attaché […]

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