Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library is an American estate and museum in Winterthur, Delaware. Pronounced “winter-tour," 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.
Liberty Displaying the Arts and Sciences, or The Genius of America Encouraging the Emancipation of the Blacks (1792) is an oil-on-canvas painting by the American artist Samuel Jennings. Held in the permanent collection of the Library Company of Philadelphia, this work is the earliest known American painting promoting abolitionism in the United States.
Winterthur is a city in the Canton of Zürich, Switzerland.
Henry Francis du Pont was an American horticulturist, collector of early American furniture and decorative arts, breeder of Holstein Friesian cattle, and scion of the powerful du Pont family. Converted into a museum in 1951, his estate of Winterthur in Delaware is the world's premier museum of American furniture and decorative arts.
Trade literature is a general term including advertising, customer technical communications, and catalogues.
John Lewis Krimmel, sometimes called "the American Hogarth," was America's first painter of genre scenes. Born in Germany, he immigrated to Philadelphia in 1809 and soon became a member of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Initially influenced by Scotland's David Wilkie, England's William Hogarth, and America's Benjamin West, he soon turned to direct observation of life for his genre scenes. He was among the first artists in America to portray free blacks, such as in Black People's Prayer Meeting (1813). Among his still frequently reproduced paintings are Fourth of July, Center Square (1811/12) and Election Day (1815), both filled with lively characterizations of scores of crowd members. Among the American artists influenced by Krimmel's work are William Sidney Mount, George Caleb Bingham, and Thomas Eakins.
Clement Ellis Conger was an American museum curator and public servant. He served as director of the U.S. Department of State Office of Fine Arts, where in that role he worked as curator of both the Diplomatic Reception Rooms and Blair House. He also served as Curator of the White House, at the pleasure of Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan. Prior to working as a curator, Conger served as a Foreign Service Officer, as the Deputy Chief of Protocol of the United States and as the Assistant Secretary of the Combined Chiefs of Staff.
James Akin was an American political cartoonist and engraver from South Carolina. He worked in Philadelphia and Newburyport, Massachusetts. Associates included President William Henry Harrison and Jacob Perkins. His works are held at the American Antiquarian Society, Library of Congress, U.S. National Portrait Gallery, and Winterthur Museum.
Katherine C. ("Kasey") Grier is an American historian and author known for her work on the history of domestic life in the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Anna Pottery was a pottery located in the city of Anna in Union County, Illinois, from 1859 to 1910. They sold stoneware and white clay ware.
The Dominy craftsmen were a family made up of American clock, furniture, and watch makers in East Hampton, New York. Nathaniel Dominy IV, his son, Nathaniel V, and his grandson, Felix Dominy were active from about 1760 to 1840. Works created by the Dominys are in the collections of Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library. As of 2022, a museum dedicated to the Dominys is under construction in East Hampton.
Jacques Antoine Bidermann, also known as James Antoine Bidermann, was an American businessman of French and Swiss origins who became the business partner and son-in-law of Éleuthère Irénée du Pont. He married into the Du Pont family and founded the estate that later became the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library.
Ruth Wales du Pont was an American socialite, philanthropist, amateur classical composer, and spouse of Henry Francis du Pont, who founded Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library.
Captain John Purves and His Wife, Eliza Anne Pritchard, is an oil-on-canvas portrait created by American painter Henry Benbridge (1743–1812). It was painted in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1775. A bequest from Henry Francis du Pont, the painting is held in the permanent collection of the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library.
Joseph Downs was an American museum curator and scholar of American decorative arts. After 17 years at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Downs became founding curator of the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library from 1949 to 1954. His assistant, Charles F. Montgomery, became Winterthur's first director after Downs' death.
Samuel Folwell (1764–1813) was an American artist who worked in the 18th and 19th century. He is best known for creating works of mourning art which are pieces that memorialize loved ones and sometimes incorporate hair or mementos of the deceased.
John A. H. Sweeney was an American curator, scholar, and writer specializing in the American decorative arts. He spent his career in curatorial and leadership positions at the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library.
Charles Frederick Hummel Jr. is a retired American curator, author, and educator who worked at the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library from 1955 to 1991, concluding his career as senior deputy director for museum and library.
Martha Lou Gandy Fales was an American art historian, museum curator, and author specializing in historic American silversmithing and jewelry. She worked as a curator and keeper of the silver at the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library during the late 1950s and worked mostly as an independent historian and consultant after that. Her seminal book Jewelry in America (1995) received the Charles F. Montgomery Prize from the Decorative Arts Society.
Milo Merle Naeve was an American art historian, curator, and museum administrator who worked at the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library, Colonial Williamsburg, the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, and the Art Institute of Chicago, where he held the first curatorship in American arts and the first endowed curatorship at the Institute.
