Dec 22, 2010

Christmas gifts from your local museumBy Mike BoehmLATimes.com

If through happenstance or procrastination you’re faced with last-minute Christmas shopping, Culture Monster brings tidings of comfort and joy: You can do it at a museum store, getting a jump start on the peace-on-Earth payoff to this hectic season by enjoying a calming hour or two in the galleries before getting down to the spending at hand.

We asked the shop managers at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, the Getty Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County for popular sellers for all budgets.

Bowers Museum

Devoted to world cultures, the museum is known especially for its exhibitions on Chinese art and history. Pauline Rusterholtz, the director of retail sales, points to a luxury item from the days when Chinese barbers paid house calls, toting their scissors, razors and lotions in a portable stool with drawers. The lavishly painted, 16-inch replica stools go for $190. From Vietnam, for $50, comes a red lacquered jewelry box adorned with fishes made from the shells of duck eggs. If you have revolutionaries or history buffs on your list, for $12.95 you can stuff their stockings with 5-inch Ben Franklin action figures, newly arrived in conjunction with the Bowers’ exhibition ” Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World.”

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