'In themselves a textile museum': The formation of the textile collection at the H. F. du Pont Winterthur Museum

This paper examines the way that Henry Francis du Pont purchased and used textiles from 1923 until 1969, specifically considering such aspects as patterns of collecting and sources for these objects. The thousands of textiles acquired, now part of the Winterthur Museum, are widely acknowledged as one of the finest collections in the United States. The purpose of this paper is twofold: to examine the formation of the textile collection in the context of period scholarship and to begin to explore the relationship of the documentary evidence of these objects to the textiles that are in the collection today.;I have created a database of more than 1,800 textiles acquired by du Pont from 1923 to 1951 including such information as dates of acquisition, sources, prices and descriptions of the textiles. For these purchases, du Pont worked with nearly 250 different dealers and shops and I will examine du Pont's relationship with one individual dealer who specialized in textiles, Alice Baldwin Beer. I have also created a database of textiles accessioned by the Winterthur Museum between 1952 and 1969. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...