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created 9 months ago | Tagged: |
Winky Dink
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When senior curator Leslie Grigsby first sifted through the Winterthur Museum's ceramics, glasses, furniture, metalwork and textiles, she knew immediately what she wanted to create: an exhibition about the museum's many wine-themed objects. It took more than a decade, but the museum, in the northwest suburbs of Wilmington, Del., has put together nearly 400 wine-related vessels, paintings, song sheets, goblets, fabrics and other curiosities, in "Uncorked!: Wine, Objects & Tradition."
On display in the museum's two main galleries until Jan. 6, the show features English and American wine paraphernalia from the 1600s through the 1800s. The pieces come from the Winterthur's own collection, built in large part by its founder, Henry Francis du Pont, or are pending donations. "The Winterthur's collection for this time period is probably the best in the world," said Patrick McGovern, scientific director at the University of Pennsylvania's Biomedical Archeology Laboratory and author of "Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Wine, Beer, and Other Alcoholic Beverages."
Ms. Grigsby whittled the exhibition down from several thousand wine-related relics. She chose six sub-themes, from "Politics, Patriotism & Taxes" to "Temperance" (grim imagery of the evils of drink, and a board game). There's a song sheet entitled "Champagne Charlie," a punch bowl feting George Washington and a porcelain figurine of Bacchus, classical god of wine. Though drawn to many of the objects, Ms. Grigsby admits to playing favorites. "I have a weakness for puzzle jugs," she said. These are vessels designed with holes in the neck and body to challenge drinkers (and offer friends a laugh). Participants had to cover the right holes to draw the wine up through the jug without spilling.
Other merry drinkers took their wine from frog mugs (cups with frog figurines inside), tumblers with dice in the base, or "fuddling cups" made from three jugs joined together. "Alcoholic beverages have traditionally served the same purposes of breaking down social barriers between people, bringing them together to celebrate, to worship, to share ideas," said Dr. McGovern. "If you look at other cultures like Turkey or ancient Peru, they also had these intricate trick vessels," he said. Among the more serious wine vessels are a cup from Jingdezhen, China, part of a cargo that sank off Africa in 1613, and a goblet probably made of a white rhinoceros horn. The museum, which has put the exhibition online, is uniting these objects, usually scattered around the museum's 175 period rooms, for the first time—and is planning lectures and, of course, wine tastings.
