And finally… Boris stand-off
Reading time: 1 minute
A dummy of Frankenstein’s monster held at the V&A in London has led to a trans-Atlantic ownership row after a museum in the US called for it to be repatriated.
The seven-foot wooden mannequin is based on the actor Boris Karloff, who played the monster in his films in the 1930s and ’40s.
The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHM) claims ownership, saying it owns both the dummy itself and the clothes and that it “did not consent to the sale of these objects”, The Telegraph reports.
The monster was donated to the NHM in 1935 by Universal Studios, the production company for Bride of Frankenstein. It was thereafter given to the Academy of Motion Pictures in 1949. The dummy and clothes were reportedly destroyed in 1967, with the pieces thought to have been lost.
In 1988, however, the mannequin and clothing resurfaced and were bought at auction by the Museum of Moving Image in London. The museum closed in 1999.
The NHM said it did not consent to the sale of the objects.
Who owns the mannequin and its clothes?
Share this article:
Subscribe to our newsletter to not miss articles like this one:
SUBSCRIBE
