With more than 60 top-flight exhibitors, noted speakers, and show features designed to draw thousands of antiques and interior design enthusiasts, the 52nd Annual Delaware Antiques Show is one of the season's premier antiques events, especially for 'best of the best' Americana seekers. The show begins with a ticketed Opening Night Party on Nov. 5 at the Chase Center on the Riverfront, Wilmington, Delaware, continuing through the weekend, from Nov. 6-8. 

Delaware Antiques Show general admission tickets include all special lectures and a view of loaned objects from the Museum of the American Revolution which will open in Philadelphia in 2017. The show benefits educational programming at Winterthur where a current exhibition on Tiffany glass offers another dazzling destination over the weekend.

The show's keynote lecture is:

"Stylishly Traditional: Celebrating Twenty-Five Years of Jayne Design Studio"
Thomas Jayne
Friday, November 6, 10:00 am (show opens at 11:00 am)

A well-decorated room includes something old—an antique chair or a chest of drawers with family history—and perhaps the view of an ancient landscape or a venerable tree. So says this year’s Honorary Chair of the Delaware Antiques Show, interior designer Thomas Jayne, who will autograph copies of his books American Decoration: A Sense of Place and The Finest Rooms in America: Fifty Influential Interiors from the Eighteenth Century to the Present following his lecture. For insight into H. F. du Pont's influence on Thomas Jayne's decorating career, watch this video, which is also featured on the Winterthur Blog.

Jayne is the founder of the internationally acclaimed, award-winning Jayne Design Studio and a former Winterthur fellow. Celebrating 25 years in the industry, he credits his guiding philosophy—that history is the core component of good design—to his years at Winterthur. It was further refined during study at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Historic Deerfield, and the J. Paul Getty Museum and while a decorator at two of America’s most iconic design firms, Parish-Hadley and Associates and Kevin McNamara, Inc. Thomas Jayne is also a noted author, frequently writing on historical themes in art, architecture, and decoration.

"Collecting American Furniture within a Changing Marketplace"

Brock Jobe
Saturday, November 7, 2:00 pm

“The desk I bought for $7,500 in 1998 is now worth $2,500.” Comments of this sort have become the common refrain of collectors since the recession of 2008. What happened? Why did it happen? What does the future hold? Join Brock Jobe as he reviews the antiques scene of the past two decades and offers hope to those collecting American furniture.

Professor Emeritus at Winterthur, Brock Jobe recently retired after a 43-year career in the museum field. He has held curatorial positions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Colonial Williamsburg; and Historic New England. In 1992 he joined the staff at Winterthur as Deputy Director of Collections and Interpretation and in 2000 moved into the post of Professor of American Decorative Arts. He has taught graduate courses in historic interiors, decorative arts, and twentieth-century design in the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture. Brock co-authored New England Furniture: The Colonial Era (1984), edited Portsmouth Furniture: Masterworks from the New Hampshire Seacoast (1993), and co-authored Harbor & Home: Furniture of Southeastern Massachusetts, 1710‒1850 (2009). Most recently he helped direct the collaborative project Four Centuries of Massachusetts Furniture, which united 11 institutions in a celebration of Bay State furnituremaking through exhibitions, publications, and programs. He is a recipient of the President’s Award from Old Sturbridge Village and the Award of Merit from the Antiques Dealers’ Association of America.

“ 'Stand Fast in the Liberty': A Rare Waistcoat Belt”

Matthew Skic
Sunday, November 8, 2:00

Join Matthew Skic as he relates the fascinating story behind a Winterthur textile purchase at the 2014 Delaware Antiques Show that was thought to be one thing but turned out to be an extremely rare example of something completely different! Relive the journey of sleuthing and research that led to the important discovery of this largely unrecognized article of male clothing.

Matthew Skic is a Lois F. McNeil Fellow in the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture. He grew up in central New Jersey and developed a passion for the American Revolution. He studied history at American University, worked as an historical interpreter at Washington Crossing State Park, and interned at the National Museum of American History and the Museum of the American Revolution. He is writing his master’s thesis on small-arms manufacturers in Philadelphia during the War for Independence.

"Influences from Abroad: Biedermeier Chairs in a New York Town House"

Willie Granston
Sunday, November 8, 2:00 pm
 
“Dolly Parton” chairs at Winterthur? With their voluptuous silhouettes and dramatic curves, two unique 19th-century side chairs in the Empire Parlor certainly fit the description! But why the distinctive design? Who made the chairs? Are they European or American? Come decide for yourselves as Willie Granston lays out the compelling evidence. 

Willie Granston, a native of Mount Desert Island, Maine, received his undergraduate degree from Trinity College, where he majored in art history and French, with a minor in architectural studies. During his junior year, he studied the political symbolism of French architecture at the Institute d’études politiques de Paris. He is a Lois F. McNeil Fellow in the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture and is researching the life and legacy of Elizabeth Colt, of Hartford, for his master’s thesis.

The Washington Collection at the Museum of the American Revolution

This loan exhibit highlights rare and important objects from the Revolutionary era with a focus on George and Martha Washington and provides a sneak peek of what the highly anticipated Museum of the American Revolution will have to offer when it opens to the public in spring 2017. The nonprofit organization that is building the museum in historic Philadelphia has a distinguished collection of artifacts, artwork, and manuscripts that span the scope of the war—from personal diaries and equipment used in camp to British, French, and American arms used in battles to General Washington’s headquarters tent and much more. For more information about the museum, visit AmRevMuseum.org.