The Winterthur Garden: Henry Francis du Pont's Romance with the Land [Paperback]

Denise Magnani (Author), Carol Betsch (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 6, 2004

The Winterthur Garden is the story of Henry Francis du Pont's lifelong love affair with his home, as well as a biography of one of America's great public gardens. Author Denise Magnani, curator of landscape at Winterthur, offers an engagingly intimate portrait of the man and his environment, documenting the evolution of a single garden and detailing its relationship to the interior of the house, from which it can be viewed. The masterpiece that du Pont created in Wilmington, Delaware, is now open for the public to enjoy, but for years it functioned as a private horticultural laboratory where du Pont - primarily known as a visionary collector of works of the American decorative arts - experimented as much with the landscape as with individual plant species gathered from the far corners of the globe. While, today, the garden may appear to be an informal, almost unplanned assemblage of plant varieties and colors, blooming in coincidental, if exquisite, sequence, in truth, nearly every square inch and every happy juxtaposition of color were meticulously planned by its loving owner. The text, which also features additional essays contributed by specialists from numerous disciplines, is breathtakingly illustrated by lush photographs of the garden taken by landscape photographer Carol Betsch. This newly issued paperback edition of the book features a completely new foreword by Winterthur's current director, Leslie Greene Bowman.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Denise Magnani is curator of landscape at Winterthur and the author of numerous books.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams (April 6, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810991497
• ISBN-13: 978-0810991491
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 9.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,730,004 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Overblown Prose/ Overblown Praise, December 31, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Winterthur Garden (Hardcover)

The gardens at Winterthur are undoubtedly beautiful, but were grandly assisted by being built upon a magnificent stretch of undulating territory and executed by 300 gardeners during its development. DuPont's role is certainly worth lauding, but not in the embarrassingly fawning, reverential way this book is written. Even his daughter presents a more realistic portrait of the man, his garden, and his collecting obsessions in her own recent book.

He was such a shy and inarticulate man, that the quotes throughout the book are almost embarrassing. He sounds like Chauncy Gardner in "Being There." The author and her Winterthur sponsors would have served their subject better had they not expressed their admiration in such florid, effusive prose. A great garden speaks for itself.

Read, instead, Hal Bruce's, "Winterthur in Bloom" for a rich, lyrical tour of the natural garden without the irritating hype and turgid writing.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Slanted story of Henry Francis Dupont's Garden, March 7, 1998

By 

Dennis Burnside [e-mail] (Portsmouth, New Hampshire) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Winterthur Garden (Hardcover)

As a director of Winterthur Garden near Wilmington, Delaware, the author is hardly about to criticize her employers or their deceased benefactor, Henry Francis Dupont, but she sometimes gets carried away with her praise for Harry while failing to provide much information on the Bidermanns, who started the estate, or on how gunpowder money, and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, funded Dupont's hobby which basically involved non-formal color woodland landscaping concentrating on rhododendrons. The book includes attractive color photos of the woods around the estate but provides only a small b/w map of the present estate and gardens, hardly suitable for use when touring the gardens. Not recommended for gardeners on tight budgets, but of interest to those who are fascinated with the Duponts.