Nicole Dining Side Chair

By 1951 Henry Francis du Pont had transformed his home into Winterthur Museum. At the same time, he began to build a world-class library, one that today contains more than 500,000 resources related to the decorative arts. Carefully preserved in the library’s rare book collection is a volume entitled Fashionable Furniture: A Collection of Three Hundred and Fifty Original Designs Representing Cabinetwork, Upholstery, and Decoration, published in London in 1881. Hickory Chair artists were inspired by the illustration of a chair with Asian influence. Coupled with the design of an early 19th-century New England chair with curved arm supports, the result is an elegant, modern dining arm and side chair.