Other People’s Collections V

Because it is behind glass it’s kind of hard to take a good picture of it or of the amazing collection it holds but Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle at the Museum of Science and Industry is reason enough to go to the museum or to stop by for another look every time you go.

Colleen Moore, a silent movie picture star, commissioned her dream doll house in 1928. It was planned by set designer Horace Jackson and interior designer Harold Grieve. It took over 7 years to build and cost over $500,000. It can be broken down into 200 modular pieces and when it was finished it toured for the benefit of children’s charities raising more than 650,000 between 1935 and 1939. In 1949 Moore donated it to the Museum of Science and Industry.

The castle follows the standard one foot to one inch doll house proportion and contains more than 1500 minatures including music scores copied in tiny notes by their famous composers, minature books by Noel Coward, Sinclair Lewis, Thorton Wilder, Sir Arthur Conon Doyle, Edna Ferber, and John Steinbeck, a minature painting by Walt Disney, the tiniest Bible ever written, ancient statues more than 2000 years old, and 1/4 inch hollow glass slippers that would fit a 5 inch Cinderella. It also has amazing wall murals, tapestries, ivory and rose quartz and jade floors, and etched glass windows. It really does need to be seen to be believed!