"Drink Fair Dont Swear": Winterthur's punch bowls and punch drinking in America. (Winterthur).(Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum)

The vast majority of Winterthur's Sixteen thousand or so ceramics and nearly thirty-five hundred pieces of glass are on display in the museum's many period rooms and in the newly unveiled Ceramics and Glass Gallery. Many of these objects were purchased by Henry Francis du Pont (see p. 154, Pl. I) to help create attractive settings for a broad range of decorative arts made or used in America. As du Pont's knowledge and interest evolved, he (and the curators who followed him) developed the ceramic and glass holdings into an important "collection of collections." Happily, du Pont settled upon punch bowls as one such collection, finding that they illustrated many of the ...