ABSTRACT
This book was divided into two major sections. One half was dedicated to description of the South Kensington museum and its collections. Conway’s comments on the Museum are revealing and imaginative in that he saw the museum not just as a popular set of displays but as a tool that could assist towards the development of industrial art culture. The house is one of those large, square, lead-colored buildings, of which so many thousands exist in London, that any one passing by would pronounce characteristically characterless. In the library the book-shelves, which do the duty of a dado around the room, have alternate doors of glass and wood, and the latter are adorned with foliation, over two high, growing from the bottom of the panel and leafing out at the top, which cannot be surpassed by any ancient marquetry. There is no sham in this house – no wood pretending to be metal, and no iron affecting to be marble.
