From the outset of his collecting in the 1920s, Henry Francis du Pont recognized the importance of portraits, paintings, prints, and maps to the room settings he was creating at Winterthur. In December 1929, he wrote to dealer Hannah Mae Horner, “I shall be interested in hearing of any American portraits of only very good looking people, or of people who are important historically.” Until 1951 when Winterthur opened as a museum, H. F. du Pont selected each painting with a critical eye to its color, texture, style, and geographical and historical contexts.
Over 450 paintings, most of them by American artists, are featured at Winterthur. Among his early purchases are some of the most important paintings in the collection. In 1930, du Pont purchased important southern works including Henry Benbridge’s double portrait of Captain and Mrs. John Purves and James Earl’s elegant Rebecca Pritchard Mills (Mrs. William Mills) and Her Daughter Eliza Shrewsbury. Benjamin West’s unfinished American Commissioners of the Preliminary Peace Negotiations with Great Britain, dating 1783–1784, was acquired from the J.P. Morgan collection in 1948. After Winterthur became a museum, H. F. du Pont turned to professional staff for advice and consultation. In 1961 he purchased John Trumbull’s iconic Washington at Verplanck’s Point, a work that had hung at Mount Vernon and was a favorite likeness of Martha Washington’s. Winterthur’s American paintings collection has continued to grow and diversify over the years and represents a carefully selected survey of early American portraiture and genre painting.
Winterthur’s collection of more than 4,000 prints and maps is comprised of both American and foreign examples. By the 1930s, du Pont was acquiring significant prints relating to colonial and Federal era America. After 1951, assisted by Winterthur curators, the collection continued to expand. It now includes works by notable American engravers Nathaniel Hurd, Paul Revere, Peter Pelham, and Amos Doolittle, and is particularly rich in images known to have been available to American consumers prior to 1840. Among the Museum’s 1,600 works on paper is an important collection of Pennsylvania-German fraktur.
Books on Winterthur Paintings and Prints
Fowble, E. McSherry. To Please Every Taste: Eighteenth-Century Prints from the Winterthur Museum. Alexandria, Va.: Art Services International, 1991.
Fowble, E. McSherry. Two Centuries of Prints in America, 1680-1880: A Selective Catalogue of the Winterthur Museum Collection. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1987.
Richardson, Edgar P. American Paintings and Related Pictures in the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1986.
Top image: “American Commissioners of the Preliminary Peace Negotiations with Great Britain.” By Benjamin West, London, England; 1783 (begun). Oil on canvas. (Unframed) Height: 28 ½” (72.3 cm); Width: 36 ¼” (92.7 cm). 1957.856
Henry Francis du Pont began collecting American glass early in his career, and by 1924 his private collection included more than 70 pieces. As well as selecting objects for their color and design, du Pont strove to acquire types of glass known, from historical records and archaeological evidence, to have been in use in early America. Winterthur continues this practice, and today, the collection consists of about 4,000 glass objects.
The work of important early American manufacturers is unusually well-represented and features glass by John Frederick Amelung (New Bremen, Maryland), Caspar Wistar (Wistarburgh, New Jersey), and Henry Williem Steigel (Manheim, Pennsylvania). Among glassware that was produced on a larger scale and would have been more broadly available are Midwestern and New England types. Up-scale items among these range from wineglasses and decanters to flower and celery vases, milk jugs, and sugar bowls. More everyday forms, including milk pans and an impressive group of historical-subject pocket flasks, are also included.
English and Continental glassware fill out the collection and provide a broader sense of what was available to American consumers from the late 1600s through the early 1800s. Such objects comprised most of the elegant table glassware found in wealthy and middle-class American homes. Most of Winterthur’s glassware, displayed in the house, is available for viewing during tours.
Books about Winterthur Glass
Palmer, Arlene. Glass in Early America: Selections from the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum. Winterthur, Del.: Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, 1993.
Top Image: Sugar bowl. Made by John Frederick Amelung, New Bremen Glassmanufactory, Frederick, Maryland; about 1790. Nonlead glass. Height: 8” (20.4 cm). 1959.3011
Metalsmiths who settled in colonial America and trained successive generations of craftsmen left a legacy of metalwork important to all aspects of life. Winterthur’s impressive collection of American-made and imported metalwork encompasses more than 21,000 objects of gold, silver, silverplate, iron, pewter, copper, and alloys of copper such as brass, bronze, and paktong. Collection strengths include domestic and ecclesiastical pewter collected chiefly by museum founder Henry Francis du Pont and the museum’s first director, Charles Montgomery. Other important groups include wrought iron hardware as well as ornamental and useful implements; lighting and lamps, many incorporating François Pierre Ami Argand’s design; Kentucky rifles; and colonial American silver.
The silver collection includes about 9,000 examples of maker’s marks on flat silver such as spoons and sugar tongs. Donated by Mr. and Mrs. Stanley B. Ineson, Mr. and Mrs. Alfred E. Bissell, and Richard Tousey, these items provide crucial information for research. Areas of focus for new acquisitions and research are all types of metalwork marked by a craftsman and objects with a known history of ownership in the United States.
Books about Winterthur Metalwork
Belden, Louise Conway. Marks of American Silversmiths in the Ineson-Bissell Collection.Winterthur, Del.: Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, 1980.
Fales, Martha Gandy. American Silver in the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum. Winterthur, Del.: Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, 1958.
Fennimore, Donald L. and Patricia A. Halfpenny. The Campbell Collection of Soup Tureens at Winterthur. Winterthur, Del.: Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, 2000.
Fennimore, Donald L. Flights of Fancy: American Silver Bird-Decorated Spoons. Winterthur, Del.: Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, 2000.
Fennimore, Donald L. Metalwork in Early America: Copper and Its Alloys from the Winterthur Collection. Winterthur, Del.: Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, 1996.
Fennimore, Donald L. Iron at Winterthur. Winterthur, Del.: Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, 2004.
Quimby, Ian M. G. American Silver at Winterthur. Winterthur, Del.: Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, 1995.
Top Image: Tankards (set of six). Made by Paul Revere, Jr., Boston, Massachusetts; 1772. Silver. Average height: 8 3/8” (21 cm). 1957.859.1-.6
Henry Francis du Pont loved textiles for their colors, patterns, and textures. From quilts to gowns, samplers to bed hangings, Winterthur’s collection includes some of the finest textiles made or used in America. Since his death in 1969, the collection has continued to grow, and now includes about 20,000 objects.
Winterthur’s extensive collection of American samplers and needlework pictures, many of which are on display in the house and the Galleries, includes one of the earliest samplers known to have been worked in America, Sarah Stone’s band sampler, dated 1678; a beautiful Philadelphia silkwork picture worked by Mary King in 1754; and a unique Berlin woolwork picture embroidered by Olevia Rebecca Parker in 1852 at the Lombard Street School, a public school in Philadelphia that educated children from the African-American community.
Quilts and other bedcovers are another strength of the textiles collection and feature counterpanes, embroidered blankets, and both Jacquard and float-weave coverlets. Highlights include Mary Foot’s 1778 embroidered bed rug from southeastern Connecticut and Sophia Myers Pearce’s chintz appliqué quilt, made in Baltimore about 1840.
Winterthur’s collection of printed cottons and linens is among the best in the world. Among its rare objects is one of only three counterpanes printed by John Hewson, a Philadelphia printer active in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Also featured are numerous examples of indigo-resist printed cottons, which were fashionable in the mid-18th century and remain so today, and a set of bed hangings plate-printed with portraits of both George Washington and Benjamin Franklin in the 1780s.
The furnishing textiles used in Winterthur’s rooms have been a source of inspiration to interior designers since the 1930s. Some are significant for the historic fabrics from which they are made, including outstanding English, French, and Indian printed cottons as well as French silks, such as the magnificent curtains made from a silk designed in the 1760s by Philippe de Lasalle (1723–1804), one of the most successful silk designers of the 18th century. Others are exceptional examples of traditional interior design from the early 20th century, many of which were made by the influential firm of Ernest Lo Nano.
For more on Winterthur’s collection of textiles and needlework, please see the quilts database and the virtual catalogue for the past exhibition Who’s Your Daddy? Families in Early American Needlework.
Books about Winterthur Textiles and Needlework
Eaton, Linda. Quilts in a Material World: Selections from the Winterthur Collection. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2007.
Montgomery, Florence M. Printed Textiles: English and American Cottons and Linens, 1700–1850. New York: Viking Press, 1970.
Montgomery, Florence M. Textiles in America, 1650–1870: A dictionary based on original documents, prints and paintings, commercial records, American merchants’ papers, shopkeepers’ advertisements, and pattern books with original swatches of cloth. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2007.
Swan, Susan Burrows. A Winterthur Guide to American Needlework. Winterthur, Del.: Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, 1976.
Swan, Susan Burrows. Plain & Fancy: American Women and Their Needlework, 1650–1850. Austin, Tx.: Curious Works Press, 1995.
Top Image: Needlework picture. Worked by Mary King, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; 1754. Silk on silk. Height: 18 ¼” (46.36 cm) Width: 24 1/8” (61.28 cm). 1966.978
“This pier table greets visitors with its lanky legs, hairy-paw feet, and a powerful stance that seems to say, ‘Look at me!’ How could you not peek inside and discover its treasures?” says Alexandra Deutsch, John L. and Marjorie P. McGraw Director of Collections. Featured in Winterthur’s exhibition Outside In: Nature-inspired Design at Winterthur, which opens May 1, the table embodies H.F. Du Pont’s passion for nature and design.
Its mirrored lid reflects its shell-filled interior. Whether the collection belonged to H. F. or an earlier collector, we do not know, but we do know that H. F. Du Pont was a passionate shell collector.
As a boy, he gathered his earliest collections from the woods and gardens of Winterthur. As an adult, his love of nature-inspired forms shaped his aesthetic. He combined his love of objects and nature in the rooms of Winterthur, where the outside and the inside blend into a masterwork of interior design.
Explore dozens of Winterthur’s iconic rooms and acres of stunning Brandywine Valley landscape through Winterthur’s 360-degree panoramic virtual tour! Zoom in close to examine Winterthur’s unparalleled collection of American decorative arts and significant architectural elements, or take a wider view of the gorgeous landscape.
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Some of the rooms in the tour may not be currently open to the public, so the virtual tour gives you unparalleled access and convenience. Get a taste of what Winterthur has to offer and then book a visit to see it all in person!
Double cabinet made in England or the Caribbean, 1770−90. Museum purchase with funds provided by the
Henry Francis du Pont Collectors Circle 2017.4
A mere shadow, faintly visible in raking light, is all that remains of the script that once spelled “Philadelphia” on the drawer front of a double cabinet. This drawer may be blank, but gold painted letters still adorn the cabinet’s eleven other drawers. Labeled to the left of Philadelphia is the name of the winemaking island of Madeira; to the right is Jamaica; “Teneriffe,” one of Spain’s seven Canary Islands, can be found painted on the drawer below; and names of other prominent 18th- and 19th-century ports and colonies fill out the mix. All taken into consideration, it became clear to Josh Lane, Winterthur’s curator of furniture, that the cabinet he was examining at the 2016 Delaware Antiques Show was a remarkable document of Atlantic world history. Purchased by Winterthur, the object offered a unique opportunity for study and soon became the focus of the first student-curated exhibition in the Society of Winterthur Fellows Gallery. Thanks to months of research by the students, aided by scholars across the country, the cabinet is now one of Winterthur’s primary references on the transatlantic slave trade.
Interior drawers with gold painted lettering.
The use of island mahogany and English oak situate the piece in the world of Atlantic commerce, but its most compelling story is revealed when its locks are turned and doors are opened. Drawers labeled with the names of ports and colonies reconstruct networks of trade: Senegambia, Madeira, Jamaica, Leeward Islands, North Carolina, Waterford, Bristol, Teneriffe, Gold Coast, and Philadelphia, revealing participation in the transatlantic trade between Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, and North America that transported shiploads of commodities and captive people during the 18th and 19th centuries.
The closed cabinet.
The Winterthur collection is deeply entangled in these trade networks. The commodities that crossed the Atlantic defined the material culture of early America―the very things Henry Francis du Pont and the museum collected. The Atlantic trade involved a wide variety of raw materials and refined goods, but slavery was its engine. Captive Africans and the products of their forced labor flowed into ports like those named on the double cabinet, making possible the luxury and beauty enjoyed by consumers in the past as well as visitors to the museum today. Through ports came sweet sugar and bitter suffering, beautiful mahogany and hideous brutality, gleaming gold and dark dehumanization.
The exterior of the double cabinet appears, at first glance, unassuming in its construction and design. Despite the modest appearance, the island mahogany used as the primary and secondary wood was an expensive material first harvested in the Caribbean as a profitable by-product of clearing land for sugar plantations. Cabinetmakers and consumers throughout the Atlantic world later revered the wood for its dark burgundy color and ease of use. Fitted to the mahogany doors of the cabinet are inset brass locks that served as extra security to protect the valuable insurance policies, shipping documents, and other records held within the drawers and shelves. In addition, the cabinetmaker built locking compartments into the sides of the cabinet for further safekeeping. Close examination also reveals fine attention to precise dovetail construction, suggesting investment of care and skill on par with other case pieces such as desk-and-bookcases and escritoires.
It is possible that the name of the original owner, maker, and origin of the cabinet will never be uncovered. What is known, however, is that the size of the storage receptacles and the labels with geographic locations and letters of the alphabet indicate that the piece functioned as a filing cabinet. The owner would have arranged paperwork dealing with each Atlantic world location in order to organize his business interests. The duplicate mention of “Gold Coast” on two of the drawers offers the best evidence of the cabinet’s use as an organizational tool. The Gold Coast, an area of Africa in what is now Ghana, was an active site of the slave trade in the 18th century. The labels “Gold Coast” and “Gold Coast Answered” suggest that the owner had enough correspondence from this region to fill two compartments and perhaps conducted more business there than in any of the other port or colony represented.
In addition to indicating geographic locations, the top drawer of the cabinet, furthest to the left, is labeled “Policys of Insurance.” Filed away were undoubtedly insurance policies penned in ink on sheets of handmade paper. Winterthur’s manuscript collection holds several such examples issued to 18th- and 19th-century merchants to protect ships and cargo with significant monetary value. Like insurance today, these policies covered loss or damage to capital. Because their cargo often included enslaved humans, merchants involved in the Atlantic trade obscured the language in these documents to ensure full protection.
Rather than displaying such an insurance policy next to the double cabinet in the exhibition Truths of the Trade: Slavery and the Winterthur Collection, the student curators chose a shipping receipt attributed to prominent Newport, Rhode Island, merchants Aaron Lopez and Jacob R. Rivera. The receipt would have fit into the cabinet drawers, but the desire to include the document originated from a graduate student’s ongoing research into Lopez and his transatlantic ventures. In fact, several of the decisions made by the students were shaped by not only their own research but that of others as well. The curators featured a telescope in the exhibition after hearing Dr. Louis Nelson speak about the dual use of the instrument for both navigation on ships and surveillance of enslaved labor by owners on Jamaica plantations. A presentation by Winterthur graduate Sarah Parks prompted the students’ choice of an 18th-century letter book containing textile samples described as being “a good style for the coast of Africa.” That letter book was the focus of Sarah’s thesis. Martha Washington’s cake plate, a particularly iconic object in the exhibition, was chosen after learning about the large amounts of sugar imported by the Washington family―information acquired during a gallery walk with the curators, research historians, and archaeologists who made possible Mount Vernon’s exhibition Lives Bound Together: Slavery at George Washington’s Mount Vernon. Scholars from far and near helped the Winterthur student curators stitch together the story of the double cabinet by surrounding the piece with objects that complemented its “unknowns.”
Student exhibition in the Society of Winterthur Fellows Gallery.
Students and staff at Winterthur continually revisit the collection to ask new questions and reinterpret the histories of objects. Truths of the Trade was one such project. It permitted graduate students from the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture and the University of Delaware Department of Art History to consider how changing cultural and institutional perceptions of race continue to influence the acquisition of objects for the museum―all through the study of an unimposing double cabinet with a remarkable story to tell.
Post by J. Lara and Alexandra Rosenberg are Lois F. McNeil Fellows in the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture.
