Objects within the art collection range from the fine and decorative arts to coins and tokens, games, and souvenirs. Sculptures at the Folger include works by Louis François Roubiliac, John Gregory, Brenda Putnam, and Alice Morgan Wright, among others.
The Babette Craven Collection of Theatrical Memorabilia, a major donation of the 1990s, encompasses a large number of early English porcelain figures, including rare examples from the Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Wedgwood, and Minton potteries, as well as diverse period objects such as plaques, tiles, boxes, ewers, jugs, and portrait medallions, all celebrating figures of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English stage. The Craven Collection also includes more than 600 prints and almost 500 playbills.
The Folger also holds any number of Shakespeare-themed souvenirs, among them medals, snuffboxes, spoons, and more. The souvenirs include a wealth of objects said to be carved from the wood of the mulberry tree that once grew at New Place, Shakespeare's last house at Stratford-upon-Avon; the sum total weight of these works has been estimated at many times that of any mulberry tree. Souvenirs are invaluable primary materials for scholars interested in the public cult of personality surrounding Shakespeare, an enduring phenomenon with its roots in the late 1700s for which George Bernard Shaw coined the term "bardolatry."
|
 |
Select arrows below to view collection highlights
|
  |
|
| David Garrick as Macbeth and Hamlet. Silver tea caddy, ca. 1775. |
|
|
