BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN PROP MANNEQUIN

On display in the Imagine Gallery at Young Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England, is a carved wooden mannequin of Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein monster in BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN.

The prop was first obtained in the U.S. and changed hands until it showed up in its current location. This is how the V&A Museum describes it history:

In 1988 the British Film Institute (BFI) purchased at auction the Boris Karloff Bride of Frankenstein costume and mannequin for their extensive costume collection, which included a wealth of historic and significant film costumes worn by major performers and designed by some of the 20th century’s most important film costume designers from the silent film era to the mid-1990s in Britain, Europe, America and Japan. The Boris Karloff costume and mannequin joined their collection on display at the Museum of the Moving Image (MOMI) on the South Bank in London, as part of their Golden Age of Hollywood section, until its closure in 1999. The BFI costume collection was subsequently transferred to the V&A in 2014, with the Boris Karloff costume and mannequin being formally accessioned by the V&A in 2015.

In 2018 the V&A was made aware that the Los Angeles County Museum of History, Science and Art had acquired from Universal Studios and accessioned this same costume and mannequin in 1935, identifiable by a registration number (A.3859-45) engraved on the mannequin. It was sent out on loan in 1949, after which the museum lost touch with the object, and in 1967 it was presumed “destroyed”. The BFI purchased the object at Christie’s South Kensington’s ‘Film and Entertainment’ auction on 16 December 1988 (lot. 301). The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHMLA) and the V&A are in communication around the safe-keeping and conservation of this object.

Universal's costume designer, Vera West, is credited for the costume and Jack Pierce for the "makeup". Jack sculpted a head for the monster in FRANKENSTEIN, but I have yet to see anywhere who sculpted this one.