Winterthur Program in American Material Culture Presents Young Scholars  



Each year the Delaware Antiques Show highlights the research of Lois F. McNeil Fellows from the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, a joint program with the University of Delaware. The program’s distinguished graduates hold positions internationally in museums, universities, antiques and auction houses, libraries, and historical societies.







Cara Caputo
Lois F. McNeil Fellow, Winterthur

Esprit de Washington:  
The Story of a Patriotic French Flask 


What looks like a book and can hold its liquor? A most curious glass flask with patriotic imagery in the Winterthur collection. Created by the Frémy Brothers Distillery in France, the flask — with its juxtaposition of George Washington’s image and French text on the “front cover” — prompts questions about international trade, politics, and advertising in the early 1800s. Cara Caputo explores the many stories revealed by studying the Washington flask and its role as a volume in the Frémy Brothers’ “liquid library.”









Christopher Malone
Lois F. McNeil Fellow, Winterthur

Anonymous by Trade, Identified by Sight: Exploring a Shop Sign at Winterthur


Christopher Malone reveals the long life of an anonymous shoemaker shop sign acquired by Henry Francis du Pont before 1959. With the help of Winterthur conservators, the sign’s material clues revealed a colorful past hidden behind the surviving details of this obscure trade sign. While not prized for its illustrious patterns of ownership or famous makers, this object is now regarded as a work of art, worthy of stewardship, conservation, and study.