52nd Annual Delaware Show

A DEBT TO INSPIRATION: ON THE OCCASION OF THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF JAYNE DESIGN STUDIO BY THOMAS JAYNE It is an honor and a privilege to serve as honorary chair and deliver the keynote lecture at the 2015 Delaware Antiques Show, benefiting one of this country’s most important cultural institutions. It is especially gratifying to me, a graduate of the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, that this year we celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Jayne Design Studio. I see myself as a scholar-decorator much as Henry Francis du Pont, the founder of Winterthur, saw the ideal curator as part decorator, part librarian. In fact, all of us at the Studio are very much inspired by the museum and the estate. In many ways, to turn Mr. du Pont’s phrase, my colleagues and I are decorators who are part librarian and part curator, seeing traditional design as an important component of contemporary decoration. I remember the first time I visited Winterthur. It was deep summer, and the estate was covered in a fog of humidity. The museum appeared as if in a vision. To me, Fig. 1. The Queen Anne Dining Room at Winterthur — 19 —