Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death

The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death is a series of eighteen intricately designed dollhouse-style dioramas created by Frances Glessner Lee, a millionaire heiress with an interest in forensic science.

She designed detailed scenarios, based on composites of real criminal acts, and presented them physically in miniature. Students were instructed to study the scene and draw conclusions from the evidence presented. Lee used her inheritance to set up Harvard's department of legal medicine, and donated the Nutshell dioramas in 1945 for use in her lectures on the subject of crime scene investigation. In 1966 the department was dissolved, and the dioramas went to the Maryland Medical Examiner’s Office in Baltimore, where they're on permanent loan; there, Harvard Magazine reports that they are still used for forensic seminars.