Creating the world's 'fooleum' - a global museum dedicated to fools and jesters
Jesters were often highly visible whether through a distinctive physique, comportment, costume, or some combination of these. This has perhaps contributed to a wealth of visual representations of them and the pool from which they often emerged, including dwarfs, musicians, entertainers and actors.
The Fooleum will share images from a growing virtual museum, with a view to exploring the ways in which fools were captured in paintings, etchings, wood-cuts, carvings and figurines.
And we welcome offers from outrageously rich and imaginative patrons to fund the Fooleum of the real world. I’ll find the Palladian palazzo, you just need to sign the cheques.
Aims and approaches
We aim to feature as global and engaging a range of images as possible, together with references to related literature, in order to enrich our understanding of how jesters have been perceived and portrayed. Once we have some critical mass, we will make this a searchable resource, as well as a feast for the eyes and mind.
As we adore alliteration (and top marks), we employ a triple-A formula:
Ambitious – does it contribute to making this the world’s most comprehensive visual array of fools and their like? We actively seek diversity across time, space and medium.
Available – does it exist? For example, a European fool-fad lasting centuries led to miles of materials, whereas in China visual depictions are thinner on the ground. This means the Fooleum will likely have a stronger European flavour and fewer Chinese examples than we’d like.
Accessible – is it digitally and otherwise accessible? We begin with images in the public domain, or generously released for research or educational purposes. Luckily, many great museums are in full-throttle digitisation mode (applause, applause).
In sum, there is no better time to be alive if you are developing a world-spanning repository of fooldom on a shoestring. And by the time we’ve featured the affordable images, sponsors will be queueing up to lavish their largesse on other acquisitions.
Latest additions … served up as they emerge
Fools through artists’ eyes
As part of the Festival of the Fool, we invite you to join this lively, illustrated online presentation, in which...
Portrait of Thomas Killigrew
Thomas (or Tom) Killigrew (1612-83) was an actor, theatre manager and acknowledged jester to Charles II (r. 1660-85) -...
We Three Loggerheads
This early 17th century painting of two jesters and a marotte (fool's head bauble or stick) taps into the theme of...
Folly Steps Down From the Pulpit
This pen and ink sketch in the margins of an early copy of Erasmus' Praise of Folly is one of 82 done by Hans Holbein...
Henry VIII with Will Somers
The Psalter of Henry VIII (r. 1509-47) was commissioned by the king who strongly identified with King David. This illumination has him playing the harp, as David did to ward...
A fool and a dwarf
This is one of two double portraits featuring Estanilao, a dwarf who served in the household of Cardinal Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle (1517-86), a leading light in Hapsburg Europe.
...Painting of Birbal
Birbal was a Hindu courtier, described by some as a Minister or of similarly high rank, at the court of Akbar the Mughal emperor (r....
Five guys named Moe (VI) – Vogtherr fool
The latest in our series of fools peeping through their fingers, this one is a woodcut by Heinrich Vogtherr the Younger (1513-68), dated to around 1540 and so slightly later...
Not jester gods after all
These two wonderful figurines, one of them in the form of a whistle no less, caught my eye and attention. In fact, we mustn't be fooled - although they are...
To cap it all
It is unlikely that historical jesters wore the stock costume of 'cap and bells' so visible in medieval and some later iconography, and so prevalent in the Western conception of...
Portrait of Madalena Ruiz
The female dwarf Madalena Ruiz served at the Spanish court from 1565 for some forty years. See also the portrait of her alongside the Spanish Infanta, and...
Cardinal Granvelle’s Dwarf with a Dog – Antonis Mor
Europe stands out for the range and number of representations of fools and dwarfs in art, particularly during the late Middle Ages and into the Renaissance. There seems to have...
We Three Loggerheads
This early 17th century painting of two jesters and a marotte (fool's head bauble or stick) taps into the theme of 'Who's the missing fool?' in which an image posed...








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