Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library is an American estate and museum in Winterthur, Delaware. Winterthur houses one of the richest collections of Americana in the United States. The museum and estate were the home of Henry Francis du Pont (1880–1969), Winterthur's founder and a prominent antiques collector and horticulturist. Part of the natural area is old-growth forest and recognized by the Old-Growth Forest Network.

History

Estate

The property where Winterthur sits was purchased by Éleuthère Irénée du Pont (E. I. du Pont) between 1810 and 1818 and was used for farming and sheep-raising. In 1837, E. I. du Pont's heirs sold of the land to E. I. du Pont's business partner from France, Jacques Antoine Bidermann (1790–1865) and his wife Evelina Gabrielle du Pont (1796–1863) for the purpose of establishing their estate. Evelina was the second daughter of E. I. Du Pont's seven children. Between 1839 and 1842, the couple built a 12-room Greek revival manor house on the property and named their estate Winterthur after Bidermann's ancestral home in Winterthur, Switzerland.

After Bidermann's death, the property passed to his son, James Irénée, who then sold it to his uncle, Henry du Pont.

Henry Algernon died at the end of 1926, and Henry Francis du Pont officially inherited Winterthur in 1927. At the time, the estate consisted of 90 buildings and more than . H. F. and Ruth renovated Winterthur's manor, tripling its size. They outfitted the home with architectural elements salvaged from 17th, 18th, and 19th century American homes in the region, including wood interior paneling from the Grahame House, Belle Isle, and Mordington. Rooms in the home were themed by time period. By 1959, the museum had been expanded to accommodate a library, lecture halls, and additional period rooms. By the time of his death in 1969, H. F. had amassed a collection of between 50,000 and 70,000 objects.

The museum comprises several buildings. In 1969, a large building that houses the library and conservation facilities was dedicated in honor of H. F.'s sister, a noted historic preservationist, and named the Louise du Pont Crowninshield Research Building.

In 1987, Winterthur assistant curator Phillip H. Curtis was sentenced to a 7-year suspended prison sentence for stealing museum artifacts (ceramics, candlesticks, and other American decorative arts) worth $75,000. Curtis sold the stolen items to art dealers to fund his lavish lifestyle. In 1991, John Quentin Feller, a professor at the University of Scranton and authority on Chinese export ceramics, attempted to steal a Chinese serving platter from Winterthur, part of a series of thefts of 100 objects from 8 museums over 18 years. Feller was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison.

Directors

Winterthur Museum has been led by eleven executive directors since its founding: Joseph Downs (1951–1954), Charles Franklin Montgomery (1954–1961), Edgar Preston Richardson (1962–1966), Charles van Ravenswaay (1966–1976), James Morton Smith (1976–1984), Thomas Ashley Graves Jr. (1985–1992), Dwight Lanmon (1992–1999), Leslie Greene Bowman (1999–2008), David Roselle (2008–2018), Carol Cadou (2018–2021), and Chris Strand (2021–present). The current Charles F. Montgomery Director and CEO of Winterthur is Chris Strand, who previously served as Winterthur's Brown Harrington Director of Garden and Estate and as interim CEO in the months following Cadou's departure.

Present day

Museum

thumb|Winterthur Museum's Pennsylvania folk art room,

thumb|[[Treaty of Paris (painting)|Treaty of Paris, a 1783 Benjamin West painting depicting (left to right): John Jay, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Laurens, and William Temple Franklin at the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783]]

Winterthur is located in northwestern Delaware, north of Wilmington on Delaware Route 52. The museum and estate are situated on , near Brandywine Creek, with of naturalistic gardens.

The museum contains 175 period-room displays and approximately 90,000 objects. Most rooms are open to the public on small, guided tours. The collection spans more than two centuries of American decorative arts, notably from 1640 to 1860, and contains some of the most important pieces of American furniture and fine art. Antiques Roadshow filmed the first three episodes of its 24th season at Winterthur in 2019.

Library

Established in 1952, the Winterthur Library holds more than 87,000 rare books and over 800,000 manuscripts and images. The Winterthur Library is free and open to the public by appointment. Holdings include rare books, periodicals, trade catalogs, manuscripts, ephemera, photographs, slides, paper art, the archives of the Winterthur estate and museum, and other resources that support the needs of researchers in American history, decorative arts, architecture, horticulture, and other subjects. The Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera was established in 1955, and the Waldron Phoenix Belknap Jr. Research Library of American Painting was formed circa 1956. The Winterthur Archives, which includes many of the du Pont family's personal papers, Winterthur estate records, and H. F.'s history of collecting, was formed in 1969 after H. F.'s death. Frank Sommer, the first library director, and museum curator Charles F. Montgomery intensified collection development ahead of the 1952 launch of Winterthur's first graduate program, in partnership with the University of Delaware. In 1969, the library moved from the main museum to the Crowninshield Research Building, which also houses extensive conservation, research, and education facilities. A narrated tram ride through the gardens is available from March through December.

One of the sources who inspired the landscaping at Winterthur was William Robinson, whose book The Wild Garden, published in 1870, recommended mixing large groupings of hardy plantings in natural landscapes. The colors of the plantings have been carefully selected, featuring hundreds of species and hybrid varieties of rhododendrons and azaleas, as well as peonies, forsythia, daffodils, lilacs, mountain laurel, and dogwood. The grounds also offer a pinetum with various types of conifers, such as firs, spruce and hemlocks.

Chandler Farm, a Federal-style historic house on the Winterthur grounds, is used as the home for the director and chief executive of Winterthur.

In 1991, Winterthur began offering paid internships for aspiring horticulturists and stewards of natural lands, who can reside temporarily on the Estate.

In 2002, Winterthur donated a conservation easement on its acreage to the Brandywine Conservation Trust, ensuring that the land would never be developed.

Graduate programs

Winterthur and the University of Delaware jointly founded and continue to offer two master's degree programs in American material culture (established in 1952 by museum director Charles F. Montgomery) and art conservation (established in 1974). As of August 1998, the programs had graduated 580 students, including 209 from the conservation program, which is one of only five graduate programs in the field in North America. The National Endowment for the Humanities has funded the program since 1974. Alumni include artists, curators, and scholars such as Wendell Garrett, Lorraine Waxman Pearce, Jessica Nicoll, Margaret Honda, Debra Hess Norris, and Charles L. Venable.

Winterthur offers residential, short-term, and remote fellowships, including postdoctoral, dissertation, and artist fellowships, to support researchers using the collections.

Display facilities

thumb|A stone cottage in the Enchanted Garden section of the grounds, opened in 2001 and intended for families with children

  • Main museum (period rooms and offices),
  • The Cottage (home of H. F. du Pont after opening of the museum),
  • The Galleries , display area
  • Research Building
  • Visitors Center

See also

  • National Register of Historic Places listings in northern New Castle County, Delaware
  • List of botanical gardens and arboretums in the United States
  • Largest historic homes in the United States
  • List of museums in Delaware
  • Hagley Museum and Library
  • Longwood Gardens
  • Nemours Estate
  • Dominy craftsmen
  • Poison Book Project

References

Further reading