Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum is a museum dedicated to nutcrackers and nutcracking devices, located in Leavenworth, Washington. Founded by Arlene Wagner and her husband George in 1995, the museum housed over 7,000 nutcrackers in 2020, and over 9,000 in 2023. She taught multiple productions of The Nutcracker, and became enamored of nutcrackers. She began collecting them during the 1960s. The museum’s building is of a Bavarian style with two floors open to the public, and has an area of 5,000 square feet.
Wagner came to be known as “the Nutcracker Lady”. In 2001, the museum became a part of the National Heritage Foundation. A bronze Roman piece c. 200 BC to 200 AD, discovered in 1960, is one of the oldest in the museum.Approximately 1,000 of the nutcrackers from the museum are highlighted in a book by Wagner, The Art and Character of Nutcrackers. The museum is open to visitors everyday of the year even holidays.
From the nutting stones of the Archaic period to modern day acrylics—hand forged or molded metals from iron to silver and gold–various woods individually carved over the centuries or mass produced–bone, horn, ivory, and even porcelain. The designs represent the artistic styles of the many periods or regional cultures or just that of a very talented individual—all created in the quest to retrieve the delicious morsel hidden inside the nutshell.
According to en.wikipedia.org; nutcrackermuseum.com.
