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These are just a few of their quirkiest things

By , Globe Staff | Mar 6, 2011 02:57 AM

A Gutenberg Bible, a taxidermy giraffe, a collection of glass flowers, scads of great paintings by Van Gogh, Monet, and Picasso: Harvard’s got them all, and the world knows it.

What they don’t necessarily know is that there are millions of other, mostly forgotten objects in Harvard’s voluminous holdings. Accumulated over four centuries, the majority of them spend their lives in darkness — in the drawers and cabinets and climate-controlled storage rooms of the university’s nearly 50 distinct collections.

It’s a pity, because some of these objects are more than just remarkable: They’re downright charismatic.

Recognizing this, some experienced hands at Harvard recently embarked on an ambitious project to rescue more than 200 of them from obscurity. The result is “Tangible Things,’’ a multivenue exhibition of some of the most fascinating, beguiling, and frankly bizarre things you will ever see.

In some cases, the things in question derive their charisma from their association with famous names (call these the “celebrity objects.’’) The blue “commander-in-chief’’ sash worn by George Washington, for instance. A painter’s palette that belonged to John Singer Sargent. A microscope owned by Mark Twain (from when he was writing the “autobiography’’ of a cholera germ). A bronze cast of a life mask of Abraham Lincoln. Or a turtle collected by Henry David Thoreau.

Others generate excitement because of their palpable connection to history. It’s thrilling, for instance, to read the handwritten instructions given to Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane, and Thomas Jefferson in advance of their mission to negotiate a treaty with France. (Jefferson, in the event, stayed home.)



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