As V&A director, I won’t save Clive of India

‘Pray for us St Sebastian that we may deserve to pass through this pestilence,’ reads the inscription on a 15th-century reliquary imploring the patron saint of plague victims to assist Augsburg as the city faced another disease outbreak. Today, this exquisite silver offering — set with rock crystal, pearls and sapphires — sits alone in the Medieval and Renaissance Galleries of the V&A, patiently awaiting the return of the British public after our own Covid plague. During lockdown, curators have been selecting objects charting the design response to coronavirus — most notably, the NHS rainbows — which might join our existing collection of 18th-century smallpox mourning rings or 1993 Keith Lewis Aids brooch. The great wonder of the V&A is its ability to place our recent trauma within a broader chronicle of human experience, charted through material culture. Long-forgotten artefacts, associated with distant events, can suddenly come alive again.

The public want safety, but they also need beauty, transcendence, respect and enjoyment after the loss and anxiety of recent months. Following the PM’s announcement, our plan is to reopen this summer with as little travail as possible. But our finances are shot; visitors are fearful of mingling in enclosed spaces; and most day-trippers to South Kensington travel via the Tube. We will be doubling-down on ensuring a Covid-secure experience: strict limits on numbers; lots of cleaning; vats of hand sanitiser. Luckily, we already have an awful lot of ‘do not touch’ signs. I am inspired by the words of the restaurateur Jeremy King and his determination to retain ‘a magical experience’ amid all the paraphernalia. We would not want our sculpture halls, Japanese galleries or fashion rotunda disfigured by lots of yellow hazard tape.

Fresh from his brutal account of the East India Company, the historian Willie Dalrymple emails from Delhi to ask whether the V&A would be interested in the statue of Lord Clive which sits outside the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office.