By Quinn Hammon, academic affairs intern

We don’t usually confuse a child’s toy for a surreal piece of art, but this item in the Winterthur Library collection finds itself in a strange and whimsical middle ground. Known officially as Folio 288, this large hardcover book is called a collage album, or, perhaps more aptly, a paper dollhouse. Paper dollhouses were a popular toy for girls during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Made in the 1880s or ‘90s, Folio 288 most likely belonged to a girl who used the pages as a home for her paper dolls. In fact, this book is accompanied in the collection by three tiny paper girls, each no more than two inches tall.

Making paper dollhouses like this one allowed children to flex their imaginations through interior design and provided an affordable setting for paper doll play. The images throughout the book were cut from furniture catalogs, wallpaper samples, and other free or inexpensive print sources. Even the paste was handmade with water and flour.

Every page in the album represents a unique room in this abstract sort of dollhouse, complete with carefully arranged paper furniture and even interactive features like moveable curtains and textured floors and cushions. Although each room exists on a two-dimensional plane, the folio’s owner found imaginative ways to bring the flat spaces to life. Some rooms have windows or doorways cut out of the page, allowing the viewer a glimpse into the next area. Others include all sorts of decorations covering the figurative walls.

Folio 288 was created mainly as a toy but survives now as a piece of art in its own right. The creator of the collage rooms put obvious care into the construction of each imaginary space. On the page labeled “nursery,” the author took the time to paste several woodgrain-patterned bits of paper into the fireplace as if for fuel to keep the paper children warm. Several pillows in the book feature a hand-drawn “B” insignia, the author further customizing items as her own.

Because of the found material used in the collages, some of the rooms play with scale and perspective in uncanny, visually interesting ways. For example, the kitchen features an image of what appears to be a pocket watch pasted halfway up the wall. The scale of the watch compared to the chairs and tables pasted below, however, allows it to read effectively as a wall clock. One bedroom features an image of a kitten on a massive scale compared to the rest of the room. Another room has a giant sunflower and huge hairbrushes. And another has a tiny chair at a humongous table. The mixed-media, highly textured, adds to the often strange visual appeal of these dollhouse rooms, which make them striking pieces of visual art. Yet, at the same time, they retain an aura of childlikeness that is very cute.

At once skillfully crafted and unabashedly nonsensical, Folio 288 is fascinating as an artifact of visual culture as well as a wonderful insight into the adorably familiar mind of a late-19th-century child. You can view Folio 288 in our Digital Collection, or in person at the library with an appointment.

By Molly Mapstone, academic affairs intern

Our memories are wells of invaluable information. The basic facts of our lives, skills we learned in school, and important events are all stored in our minds and inflected by our unique experiences and perspectives. Through oral history, we record and collect these memories for future generations. Following the death of their colleague, Rutherford John Gettens, early career art conservators Tom Chase and Joyce Hill Stoner spearheaded an oral history project to collect firsthand accounts of their profession.

On September 4, 1975, Chase and Stoner conducted a roundtable discussion at a conservation conference with conservators Richard Buck, Katherine Gettens, and George Leslie Stout. Chase and Stoner were curious about their subjects’ experiences as conservators during a time of immense change and asked them to discuss their mentors, first jobs, technical approaches to caring for material culture, and thoughts on the future. This roundtable discussion grew into the Foundation for Advancement in Conservation (FAIC) Oral History Project.

The FAIC Oral History Project documents developments in the field of conservation through firsthand accounts. When the project officially began in 1975, conservation was a relatively recent development in cultural heritage work. Prior to the mid-20th century, historically significant objects that needed treatment in America were typically worked on by restorers who wanted to preserve and restore them to their original state.  

Two events in American history accelerated the transition from restoration to conservation—World War II and Italy’s 1966 Florence Flood. During both events, Americans traveled abroad and joined international experts to recover, repatriate, and provide appropriate treatments on objects of cultural significance. Roundtable interviewee George Leslie Stout served in the “Monuments Men” division of the Civil Affairs and Military Government Sections of the Allied armies during World War II. One of the first Monuments Men to land in Normandy after D-Day, Stout helped conserve thousands of works of art stolen and hidden by the Nazis across Europe.

By the late 20th century, museums, libraries and other cultural institutions hired conservators to work on their collections and ensure the long-term preservation of the objects that connect us to our shared past. Conservators today focus on using reversible treatments and preventing future damage to objects.

Since 1975, hundreds of interviews have been held with conservators and allied professionals in America and abroad. Rebecca Rushfield, associate director of the project, conducted more than one hundred interviews and continues this work today. These interviews provide insights into the history of object treatments, issues in the field, and eyewitness accounts of numerous historical events. Now housed in the Winterthur Library, the FAIC Oral History Collection archive can be accessed online through the Winterthur Library Digital Collection or on-site at the Winterthur Library by appointment.

Explore the digital collection.

Access the annotated transcript of the first interview conducted in 1975 by Stoner and Chase of Stout, Buck and Gettens.

Explore the finding aid for the complete collection.

Winterthur thanks the Berger Foundation for supporting work to make this collection accessible to a broad public.