With her extensive collection of Japanese items, Loretta Shaw endeavoured to depict the material, social, cultural and political life of her beloved Japan. Models and miniatures comprised a significant proportion of her collection, suggesting that her rationale for donating was educational and illustrative. Her donations demonstrated fashions (dolls with representative hair styles and clothing, shoes, model sandals), domestic settings (miniature furniture models, teapots, candy, fans), transportation (model sedan chair, model rickshaw, model boat), and practices (chopsticks, combs, models of musical instruments). Decorative items such as incense burners, vases, porcelains and figurines expressed Japanese culture, as did the photo albums of the emperor's wedding, magazines, postcards, and many prints of people and landscapes. Not all of Shaw's donations were work-a-day objects however. There were also several antiques and objects that once resided in houses of the nobility.