WINTERTHUR, Del. (September 11, 2026)—Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library will present the 2026 Delaware Antiques Show November 6–8 at the Chase Center on the Riverfront in Wilmington, with a Collector’s Preview opening the show Thursday, November 5. The show brings together more than 60 distinguished dealers showcasing exceptional examples of American antiques, along with fine art, folk art, garden antiques, jewelry, and works from across decorative arts. Now in its 63rd year, the Delaware Antiques Show has remained the standard-bearer for American antiques shows, where connoisseurs, emerging collectors, history lovers, as well as curators and curious visitors have come to buy, learn, and train the eye.

Winterthur is home to one of the nation’s premier collections of American decorative arts, and the show boasts a vetted roster of the trade’s most knowledgeable dealers and a lecture series drawn from active curatorial and academic research.

Show proceeds fund Winterthur’s free school programs for K-12 students, tying every ticket back to the museum’s founding educational mission. This past fiscal year, nearly 16,000 children enjoyed the museum, galleries, and garden on free field trips as well as via in-school programs, which are funded in part through proceeds from the Delaware Antiques Show. This year, for the first time, participating students were asked to create a drawing inspired by the collection. Select student works will be on display at the show entrance.

“The Delaware Antiques Show holds a singular place in the field after more than six decades as the benchmark show for American antiques,” said Chris Strand, Director and CEO of Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library. “From the history of the American interior to the future of collecting, this year’s program brings curators, designers, photographers, and scholars into conversation with the objects on the show floor. We are grateful to all participants, who are helping us reach thousands of children to educate them about decorative arts, material culture, conservation, natural lands, and horticulture through our school programs.”

A Milestone Year, Twice Over

The 2026 edition of the show arrives at a resonant moment for Winterthur, which is celebrating the 75th anniversary of the museum’s opening alongside the nation’s 250th anniversary. Both milestones run through this year’s show, most visibly in a slate of lectures examining Revolutionary-era material culture. Emily Sneff, managing editor of Americana Insights, traces the Declaration of Independence’s afterlife in folk art, engravings, and commemorative objects, while Winterthur associate curator Kedra Kearis previews the museum’s 2027 major exhibition on the Peales, America’s first family of artists.

The moment also situates the show within a broader, well-documented resurgence of interest in Americana and material-culture-driven design. As the trade and design press have chronicled over the past several seasons, collectors and decorators are increasingly folding early American furniture, folk art, and historic textiles into layered, collected-over-time interiors that prizes provenance, hand craftsmanship, and objects with a documented story. The Delaware Antiques Show, and the dealers who exhibit there, sit at the center of this resurgence, offering pieces with the scholarship and vetting that collectors desire.

Diverse Expertise on the Show Floor

More than 60 distinguished dealers, many of them among the most respected specialists in American furniture, folk art, silver, ceramics, textiles, and fine art, will exhibit at the 2026 show, including David A. Schorsch–Eileen M. Smiles American Antiques, Jeff R. Bridgman Antiques, Nathan Liverant and Son, Elliott and Grace Snyder, S. J. Shrubsole, Lillian Nassau LLC, H. L. Chalfant Fine Art and Antiques, Kelly Kinzle, Diana H. Bittel, and The Norwoods’ Spirit of America, among others.

Each exhibitor is vetted for expertise and authenticity, a standard that continues to distinguish Delaware Antiques Show within a marketplace where scholarship and connoisseurship increasingly matter as much to buyers as aesthetics. Dealers will bring inventory spanning three centuries of American and related decorative arts, from Federal-period furniture and folk portraiture to Pennsylvania German painted furniture, historic silver, and garden antiques, offering both seasoned collectors and first-time buyers direct access to the people who research, source, and authenticate the objects themselves. The show is managed by Diana Bittel.

A Collector’s Preview and New Wine & Antiques Experience
The show opens with a Collector’s Preview on Thursday, November 5, 6:00–9:00 pm, featuring cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, live music from the Elysium Trio, and first access to the show floor. New this year is In Conversation: Wine & Antiques, a series of tasting stations positioned throughout the show floor, included with all preview tickets for guests 21 and older. Preview tickets ($175–$350) include admission to all three days of the show and to Winterthur throughout the show run. See the event website for details and ticket purchase.

Keynote Lecture
“Photography & Interiors”
Photographer Simon Upton and interior designer Remy Renzullo explore how photography shapes our understanding of historic interiors
Saturday, November 7, 1:00–2:00 pm

This year’s keynote lecture pairs renowned interiors photographer Simon Upton, a 35-year veteran contributor to The World of Interiors, Vogue, Architectural Digest, Elle Décor, Veranda, and Town & Country, whose retrospective A–Z Interiors publishes with Rizzoli this September, with interior designer Remy Renzullo, known for research-driven restorations of historic properties across the United States, England, and Italy. The talk, followed by a book signing, takes place Saturday, November 7, from 1:00–2:00 pm, and examines how photography has shaped and preserved our collective memory of great American and European interiors.

Additional Lectures

“Becoming Peale” Lecture
Friday, November 6, 1:30–2:30pm
Kedra Kearis, associate curator of art and visual culture at Winterthur will preview the 2027 Becoming Peale major exhibition, which brings the Peales’ close-knit artistic world to life while foregrounding underrepresented members of their circle.

Chipstone Lectures on Stenton
Friday, November 6, 2:30–3:30 pm
Stenton is a historic Georgian-style mansion and plantation in Philadelphia that served as the country estate for James Logan, a Quaker merchant, scholar, and secretary to Pennsylvania founder William Penn. The estate remained in the Logan family for six generations. George Washington used the home as his headquarters during the American Revolutionary War.

  • Dennis Pickeral, executive director, will present on 18th-century ceramics associated with tea, coffee, and chocolate drinking from one of Philadelphia’s best-preserved historic houses. “Very Courteously Entertained: Ceramic Tea Wares from James Logan’s Stenton” will showcase rare examples that descended through the Logan family.
  • Laura Keim, curator, 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 18th-century Philadelphia furniture scholarship and collecting. In her “Evidence from Stenton: Hornor’s Blue Book Reconsidered” talk she will share some of her research relating to the Logan, Norris, and Dickinson families.

Americana Insights Lectures

Saturday, November 7, 3:00–4:00 pm
Emily Sneff, managing editor of Americana Insights; Sarah Bowen, assistant curator at Historic Trappe; and Christopher Malone, curator at Historic Trappe, will present new research from the fourth annual volume of Americana Insights, the scholarly journal on traditional Americana, folk art, and material culture, followed by a book signing.

  • Sneff will present “The Declaration of Independence in American Folk Art.”
  • Bowen will discuss her examination of two needlework samplers made during the early American republic in “Nation-making in Pennsylvania German Needlework.”
  • Malone will explore 100 years of decorative arts from rural Pennsylvania in “A Grammar of Color: Paint, Craft, and a Century of Collecting in the Mahantongo Valley.”

Student Scholars Lectures
Sunday, November 8, 2:00–3:00 pm
Sponsored by The Decorative Arts Trust, this program showcases new research by Lois F. McNeil Fellows from the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, established in 1952 by Winterthur and the University of Delaware to promote the interdisciplinary study of American decorative arts and material culture. The program’s alumni hold distinguished positions internationally in museums, antiques and auction houses, preservation organizations, historical societies, colleges and universities, and libraries. These emerging voices in the field will present new object-based research.

  • Charles Manion will examine the fancy faux finish of a table made in Maine in “Fancy Action Painting: Seeing a Faux Finish on Its Own Terms.”
  • Amalia Pappa will explore the origin story of an engraving on a William Will pewter mug in “Huzza for Capt. Ickes: Memorializing a Chance Encounter on a Pewter Mug.”
  • Madeleine Ward-Shultz will delve into the nature-themed seashell decoration on a serving dish adorned with a kingfisher finial in “Fishing Fancies: The Nature-Inspired Entertainment of a Sweetmeat or Pickle Dish.”  

Other Details for the 63rd Annual Delaware Antiques Show
Hours

  • Friday, November 6: 11:00 am–6:00 pm
  • Saturday, November 7: 11:00 am–6:00 pm
  • Sunday, November 8: 11:00 am–5:00 pm

General Admission
General admission ($15–$29) is available for Friday, November 6, through Sunday, November 8, and includes museum admission for the run of the show. Free for children under 12. Tickets valid for all three days of the show and for admission to Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library on show days. The Challenging Masterpieces: Art and Identity in American Furniture and At Home at Winterthur exhibitions are on view in the Galleries.

Location
Chase Center on the Riverfront, 815 Justison Street, Wilmington, Delaware. Conveniently located less than one hour south of Philadelphia and midway between New York City and Washington, D.C.

Sponsorship & Proceeds
The Delaware Antiques Show is presented by Wilmington Trust, a Member of the M&T Family. Sponsored also by lead sponsor The John M. & Ellen B. Cleveland Foundation and supporting sponsor Chubb, a world leader in insurance.

Proceeds from this year’s Delaware Antiques Show help support key educational initiatives such as free school programs. Support for these important programs allows us to share the wonder of Winterthur with thousands of schoolchildren and our surrounding community.

Tickets & Information
All lectures are included with admission. More information is on the event website winterthur.org/annual-delaware-antiques-show, including the list of antiques dealers. To purchase tickets, visit winterthur.org/DAS. Email das@winterthur.org or call 800.448.3883 for assistance or questions.

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ABOUT WINTERTHUR MUSEUM, GARDEN & LIBRARY
Winterthur—known worldwide for its preeminent collection of American decorative arts, naturalistic garden, and research library for the study of American art and material culture— offers a variety of tours, exhibitions, programs, and activities throughout the year. Admission includes an introductory house tour, exhibitions, a narrated tram ride (weather and space permitting), and the Winterthur Garden.

Winterthur is located on Route 52, six miles northwest of Wilmington, Delaware, and five miles south of U.S. Route 1. Winterthur is committed to accessible programming for all. For information, including special services, call 800.448.3883 or visit winterthur.org. Winterthur is closed seasonally from early January through late February.

Contact: Lisa McVey, lmcvey@winterthur.org or 302.888.4803