Variety Unit

Built in 1835, the building was originally known as the Weed House, but was renamed Variety Unit to reflect the wide range of decorative arts exhibited there.

The original brick structure, with its front-gable orientation and fully articulated pediment, reflects the style of Greek Revival architecture popular in the mid-19th century.

However, the complex rambling interior composed of a series of one and two-room additions, constructed over time as the occupants required more space, embodies the New England tradition of "continuous architecture."

Shelburne Museum's European and American dolls include bisque, papier-mâché, Parian, china, wax, wood and cloth pieces, most of them made between 1760 and 1930.

Joel Ellis of Springfield, Vermont made some of the first commercial American dolls with wooden bodies, patented jointed limbs, and pewter hands and feet.

In the late 19th century French dollmakers such as Bru, Jumeau, and Steiner, and German dollmakers such as Kestner and Simon & Halbig – all represented in Shelburne Museum's collection – created elegant bisque-head dolls with large wide glass eyes, thick eyebrows, long lashes, cupid's bow lips, beautifully coiffed real hair and elaborate dresses of silk and other fine fabrics.

Tortoise shell, seashells, animal horn, pewter, silver, and exotic tropical woods gathered during the whaling journeys sometimes provided decorative accents.

[1] Automata are large (sometimes three feet tall), often comical wind-up toys with accompanying music that were displayed in parlors, especially in France, in the late-19th and early 20th centuries.

[3] North America's abundant forests supplied the raw materials that settlers used to create buildings and objects that ranged from baskets, barrels, and bowls, to carriages and boats.

The semi-circular burls typically required little shaping to form bowls and in addition to their strength, they often possessed highly patterned and attractive grains.