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“I feel very strongly that the
curtains, bed hangings, etc. will
make all the difference in the
house. If you knew the many
hours I spent trying to get just the
right folds etc. in the different
curtains in my house, I think you
would appreciate that they can
only be made by the best
upholsterer and even then need
supervision in their making.”

- Henry Francis du Pont,
January 1940

The eighteenth-century textile in the Walnut Room used to make the bedhangings, cover, and curtains has been in use for eighty years.
First reproduced by Brunschwig & Fils in 1974, the popular pattern is called Bird & Thistle Toile.

The Well-Dressed Window:

Curtains at Winterthur

he du Pont family arrived in America from France in 1800 and to expand in a grand manner. Working with architect Albert Ely Ives,
in 1802 established a mill to make black powder on the between 1929 and 1931, du Pont not only remodeled the existing house
TBrandywine Creek near Wilmington, Delaware. The estate they but built a massive extension. In addition to two floors of bedrooms,
created is called Eleutherian Mills, and the four tracts of land they the house also contained numerous spaces for dining and entertaining
purchased nearby form the nucleus of what we know today as in which du Pont created what were considered by many to be the most
Winterthur. The first house on the beautiful rooms in America.
Winterthur estate was built in 1839
by Antoine and Evelina du Pont Decorating with Antiques
Bidermann, who named the property With the framework provided by
after Bidermann’s ancestral home in architectural elements salvaged from
Switzerland. When Antoine and historic buildings in twelve of the
Evelina died, in the mid-1860s, their thirteen original colonies, du Pont
son sold the property to Henry du furnished his rooms with antiques,
Pont, Evelina’s brother, who passed it primarily American. These he
on to his son Henry Algernon. purchased in quantity through auctions
Henry Algernon’s son, Henry and dealers. Like many other collectors
Francis (1880‒1969), was born at in the early twentieth century, he was
Winterthur. He took over manage- strongly influenced by the period
ment of the large household after the rooms in the Metropolitan Museum of
death of his mother, Pauline Foster Art’s American Wing, which opened
du Pont, in 1902. When he inherited in 1924. Furniture and other decorative
the estate after the death of his father These bedhangings are made from fine linen and cotton arts were displayed there in room
in 1926, he began formulating plans embroidered with colorful crewelwork using hand-spun yarn. settings according to a chronology of
Probably embroidered in New England during the eighteenth century.
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