Winterthur

Winterthur, the great country estate near Wilmington, Delaware, was the private residence of Henry Francis du Pont from 1880 to 1969. Transformed into a distinguished museum and showcase garden set on 950 acres, Winterthur's collection of early American decorative arts is the largest, richest, and most diverse in the world. Today the collection, which spans the years 1640 to 1860, comprises more than 89,000 objects in 175 period rooms and other display areas. First published in 1985, this book on Winterthur has now been expanded and fully updated to include chapters on the newly constructed exhibition building and the magnificent garden. The new exhibition building, known as the Galleries, displays trophies of the permanent collection and offers a dazzling distillation of Winterthur's peerless furniture and decorative arts. The gardens, long a personal passion of du Pont's and a favorite of tourists today, have recently been further melded into a single garden and landscape experience. Jay E. Cantor senior vice president at Christie's International, offers an informed and engaging view of du Pont and his activities in the evolving collecting climate of the day. He tells how Winterthur was built and rebuilt, how it flourished, how the garden was painstakingly created and maintained. A fascinating portrait emerges of Winterthur during its heyday as a grand country manor that was a home with every possible amenity as well as a center for sophisticated and lavish entertaining. (Winterthur had its own post office, railroad station, motion picture facilities.) The text is peppered with vintage quotes from du Pont's correspondence that reveal his collecting methods, ideas, and concerns.