The Florence Dibell Bartlett Collection

The Museum of International Folk Art’s earliest collection was donated by our founder, Florence Dibell Bartlett, in the late 1940s, when a museum dedicated to the collecting, care, and display of folk art was still an idea awaiting completion. In a 1953 article she wrote for El Palacio magazine to mark the opening of the museum, Florence Dibell Bartlett described her own collecting in this way: “I have made, during extensive travels over the globe, a folk art collection of old costumes, jewelry, textiles, ceramics, furniture and other objects which will become a nucleus for the Museum…where an appreciation of the culture and craft of other countries becomes a link in drawing the people into closer fellowship.” Scandinavia was among her favorite destinations, and works from this region are one of the many strengths of the Bartlett collection.