Puppet
Puppet
ca. 1930s (made)
ca. 1930s (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
Having carved heads of George Bernard Shaw and William Shakespeare in lime wood, the puppeteer Waldo Lanchester (1897-1978) showed them to his friend and fellow puppet enthusiast George Bernard Shaw who wrote the short play Shakes vs. Shav about which was the best playwright for Lanchester's company in 1949, featuring the characters Shakespeare, Shaw, Macbeth, Rob Roy, Captain Shotover and Ellie Dunn. In his preface to the play Shaw referred to Waldo Lanchester as the premier puppetmaster of England.
The marionettes were carved by Waldo Lanchester with heads by Jack Whitehead, and dressed by Muriel Lanchester. The Shakespeare puppet is in the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and the Shaw puppet is now housed in the George Bernard Shaw Museum, Shaw's Corner, at Ayot St Lawrence.
The marionettes were carved by Waldo Lanchester with heads by Jack Whitehead, and dressed by Muriel Lanchester. The Shakespeare puppet is in the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and the Shaw puppet is now housed in the George Bernard Shaw Museum, Shaw's Corner, at Ayot St Lawrence.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Titles |
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| Materials and techniques | Carved lime wood, pencil sketches |
| Brief description | Head of George Bernard Shaw, smaller of a set of two, carved in lime wood by Waldo S. Lanchester (1897-1978), ca.1949. |
| Physical description | Carved in lime wood. The eyes are drawn in pencil over the wood. |
| Dimensions |
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| Credit line | Lanchester Collection |
| Summary | Having carved heads of George Bernard Shaw and William Shakespeare in lime wood, the puppeteer Waldo Lanchester (1897-1978) showed them to his friend and fellow puppet enthusiast George Bernard Shaw who wrote the short play Shakes vs. Shav about which was the best playwright for Lanchester's company in 1949, featuring the characters Shakespeare, Shaw, Macbeth, Rob Roy, Captain Shotover and Ellie Dunn. In his preface to the play Shaw referred to Waldo Lanchester as the premier puppetmaster of England. The marionettes were carved by Waldo Lanchester with heads by Jack Whitehead, and dressed by Muriel Lanchester. The Shakespeare puppet is in the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and the Shaw puppet is now housed in the George Bernard Shaw Museum, Shaw's Corner, at Ayot St Lawrence. |
| Associated object | S.1079-2011 (Ensemble) |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | S.1080-2011 |
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| Record created | March 21, 2012 |
| Record URL |
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