Overview
Toy theater cut-out figure collection including movable parts, tinsel embellishment, etc...
Dates
- undated
Language of Materials
Collection materials are in English.
Conditions Governing Access
There are no restrictions on physical access to this material. Collection is open for research.
Extent
1 linear feet (3 boxes)133 figures in total. 7 figures cut-out from printed sheets with printed text, hand-colored and some decorated with tinsel. The remainder of the figures were drawn and painted by hand, some decorated with tinsel, many with movable parts, some tied with string, and some prepared as trick or transformation pieces.
Biographical / Historical
Toy theaters were especially popular as English children's toys in the first half of the 19th-century. Individual character portrait prints known as "penny plains" and "twopence coloureds" were collected and often used in toy theaters, as were engraved prints of multiple characters and scenery. Figures were often cut-out from these prints, or drawn by hand, mounted on cardboard, and used as character figures in play performances. Tinseling enthusiasts added to the costumes with die-cut metal foils (tinsel) as well as bits of fabric, leather, feathers, ink, paint and any other suitable material.
Arrangement
Arranged as received in repository.
Physical Location
b
Immediate Source of Acquisition
2003MT-203. Purchase; received: 1991; 91-92.005.
Processing Information
Processed by: Bonnie B. Salt
- Title
- Toy theater cut-out figure collection, undated: Guide.
- Author
- Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
- Description rules
- dacs
- Language of description
- und
- EAD ID
- hou02411
Repository Details
Part of the Houghton Library Repository
Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.
Houghton Library’s Reading Room is free and open to all who wish to use the library’s collections.
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