Little landscapes: dioramas in museum displays

The Science Museum in London has over a hundred dioramas in its holdings, prepared at various times since 1931 for a range of exhibitions and displays. These have become simultaneously more interesting as artefacts in their own right, and more threatened as display fashion changes and their original purpose is less relevant to today's audiences. Nonetheless, they are immensely powerful as devices for communication to audiences and their own histories add depth to our understanding of how museums work.