Delaware Antiques Show

Becoming Peale

Friday, November 6 | 1:30–2:30 pm

By Kedra Kearis, Associate Curator of Art and Visual Culture, Winterthur

This talk previews Winterthur’s upcoming major exhibition Becoming Peale (2027), which explores the art of the multigenerational Peale family. Placed in conversation with historical objects from Winterthur’s celebrated decorative arts collection, the exhibition brings the Peales’ close-knit artistic world to life while foregrounding underrepresented members of their circle and tracing the impact of industrialization and the art of photography on their art in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Chipstone Lectures

Friday, November 6 | 2:30–3:30 pm

Very Courteously Entertained: Ceramic Tea Wares from James Logan’s Stenton

By Dennis Pickeral, Executive Director, Stenton

This presentation examines eighteenth-century ceramics associated with tea, coffee, and chocolate drinking from one of Philadelphia’s best-preserved historic houses, Stenton, including rare examples that descended through the Logan family and a large assemblage of excavated archaeological vessels. 

Evidence from Stenton: Hornor’s Blue Book Reconsidered

By Laura Keim, Curator, Stenton

Keim will discuss William Macpherson Hornor, Jr.’s 1935 publication, Blue Book Philadelphia Furniture: William Penn to George Washington, from its mysterious inception to its status as a Bible in its field of eighteenth-century Philadelphia furniture scholarship and collecting. She will share some of her research relating to the Logan, Norris, and Dickinson families that has led her to question Hornor’s readings and interpretations of both historic documents and objects, suggesting we read Hornor with the same careful, critical eye we bring to all the sources we study.

Americana Insights Lectures

Saturday, November 7 | 3:00–4:00 pm

Americana Insights 2026 is the fourth volume in an annual series that presents the latest research and discoveries on traditional Americana, folk art, and material culture.

Book signing to follow lectures.

The Declaration of Independence in American Folk Art

By Emily Sneff, Managing Editor, Americana Insights

Explore the history of the Declaration as both text and symbol in engravings, textiles, paintings, and other media. From the first printings of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 through commemorative material culture from the Centennial, this talk will examine the legibility of the founding document of the United States in different art forms and contexts.

Nation-making in Pennsylvania German Needlework

By Sarah Bowen, Assistant Curator, Historic Trappe

Examining two needlework samplers created in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, both depicting George Washington, Bowen will explore how women engaged in the cultural project of nation-building in the early American republic. These samplers, alongside other examples produced by Pennsylvania German girls, demonstrate how political imagery in needlework reflects the intersections of social class, access to education, and the burgeoning ideology of republican motherhood.

A Grammar of Color: Paint, Craft, and a Century of Collecting the Mahantongo Valley

By Christopher Malone, Curator, Historic Trappe and Content Curator, Americana Insights

Christopher Malone will explore the history of collecting Mahantongo Valley decorative arts, from their introduction in the December 1926 issue of The Magazine Antiques and exhibition at the Sesquicentennial International Exposition in Philadelphia to the prominent collectors and collections that have acquired pieces from this rural section of Pennsylvania over the last 100 years.

Student Scholars Lectures

Sunday, November 8 | 2:00–3:00  pm

Fancy Action Painting: Seeing a Faux Finish on Its Own Terms

By Charles Manion

Chief among the unusual qualities of a Maine table recently acquired by Winterthur is its fancy faux finish, which is so bold and cartoonish that it leans into abstraction. How should such painting be understood?

“Huzza for Capt. Ickes”: Memorializing a Chance Encounter on a Pewter Mug

By Amalia Pappa

The origin story of the engraving on the William Will pewter mug gifted to Captain Peter Ickes has always been treated as apocryphal, especially considering that a single occasion prompting the commemorative engraving had yet to be discovered. Consulting local historical sources, Pappa has discovered such a worthy occasion— a chance visit from President Washington.

Fishing Fancies: The Nature-Inspired Entertainment of a Sweetmeat or Pickle Dish

By Madeleine Ward-Schultz

During the eighteenth century, English ceramics expanded the availability and popularity of nature-themed decorative arts for the dining table. Through a discussion of a colorful, shell-decorated sweetmeat or pickle dish with a vibrant kingfisher finial, Ward-Schultz explores the dynamic engagement between nature and imagination, enlivening and enriching a playful and participatory dining experience.