Popular Entertainment

This Museum's popular entertainment collections hold some of the Smithsonian's most beloved artifacts. The ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz reside here, along with the Muppet character Kermit the Frog, and props from popular television series such as M*A*S*H and All in the Family. But as in many of the Museum's collections, the best-known objects are a small part of the story.

The collection also encompasses many other artifacts of 19th- and 20th-century commercial theater, film, radio, and TV—some 50,000 sound recordings dating back to 1903; posters, publicity stills, and programs from films and performances; puppets; numerous items from World's Fairs from 1851 to 1992; and audiovisual materials on Groucho Marx, to name only a few.

Shakespeare's plays have engaged audiences for centuries, and his theatrical subject matter has influenced the visual arts as well.
Description
Shakespeare's plays have engaged audiences for centuries, and his theatrical subject matter has influenced the visual arts as well. In the 1790s, London publishers John and Josiah Boydell opened the "Shakspeare Gallery" filled with paintings commissioned
to depict scenes from the plays. One hundred of these images were engraved as large prints and proved to be so popular that several editions were published, including an American edition in the 1840s.
King Lear, showing Lear in the storm from Act III, Scene iv, was engraved in 1793 by William Sharp (1749–1824) after the painting by Benjamin West (1738–1820). This dramatic scene was considered a powerful moral lesson representing energy of thought and action. The painting came to the United States in 1807, part of the collection of engineer Robert Fulton (1765–1815). It was exhibited in Philadelphia, Boston, and New York and is now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Many collectors considered Sharp's engraving of King Lear the finest of the prints in Boydells' Shakspeare Gallery series. Vermont Congressman George Perkins Marsh and President Thomas Jefferson owned prints from the Shakspeare Gallery. This impression from the original English edition came to the Museum in 1979 as a bequest from the family of American artist Stephen Alonzo Schoff (1818–1904), a bank-note engraver who also produced prints in larger formats. Schoff studied art in Europe between 1839 and 1841, and he acquired a significant collection of European and American prints to serve as his working visual library. He owned this preliminary etched proof prepared in an acid bath and a final state of the print finished by hand with the burin, an engraver's cutting tool.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1792
referenced
Shakespeare, William
publisher
Boydell, John
Boydell, Josiah
original artist
West, Benjamin
maker
Sharp, William
ID Number
1979.0114.167
accession number
1979.0114
catalog number
1979.0114.167
79.0114.167
Shakespeare's plays have engaged audiences for centuries, and his theatrical subject matter has influenced the visual arts as well.
Description
Shakespeare's plays have engaged audiences for centuries, and his theatrical subject matter has influenced the visual arts as well. In the 1790s, London publishers John and Josiah Boydell opened the "Shakspeare Gallery" filled with paintings they commissioned to depict scenes from the plays. One hundred of these images were engraved as large prints and proved to be so popular that several editions were published, including an American edition in the 1840s.
King Lear, showing Lear in the storm from Act III, Scene IV, was engraved in 1793 by William Sharp (1749–1824) after the painting by Benjamin West (1738–1820). This dramatic scene was considered a powerful moral lesson representing energy of thought and action. The painting came to the United States in 1807, part of the collection of engineer Robert Fulton (1765–1815). It was exhibited in Philadelphia, Boston, and New York and is now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Many collectors considered Sharp's engraving of King Lear the finest of the prints in Boydells' Shakspeare Gallery series. Vermont Congressman George Perkins Marsh and President Thomas Jefferson owned prints from the Shakspeare Gallery. This impression from the original English edition came to the Museum in 1979 as a bequest from the family of American artist Stephen Alonzo Schoff (1818–1904), a bank-note engraver who also produced prints in larger formats. Schoff studied art in Europe between 1839 and 1841, and he acquired a significant collection of European and American prints to serve as his working visual library. He owned a preliminary etched proof prepared in an acid bath and this final state of the print finished by hand with the burin, an engraver's cutting tool.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1793
referenced
Shakespeare, William
original artist
West, Benjamin
publisher
Boydell, John
Boydell, Josiah
maker
Sharp, William
ID Number
1979.0114.166
accession number
1979.0114
catalog number
1979.0114.166
79.0114.166

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