Last week, I had the pleasure of accompanying Stephanie to Pennsylvania for a few days. The reason for the trip was to visit the DuPont Gardens at Longwood, but we also made it down to Winterthur to see some wonderful chairs.

Nope, not these, although they were worthy of my attention for the entire time we were in the room. I just thought it might be of interest to see how the other half lives. Other half of what I'm not sure.

I deeply regret not having my good camera with me, but what follows are a few of my favorite sights in the hall of Windsors that I saw.

The staff was kind enough to give me a private tour of this room, it helps to ask. Much of the treat is the scale of the parts and the patina. It's so fascinating to see the thinness of the parts and the shapes.

I know that this last image isn't the usual topic here, but it really caught my eye and has occupied my thoughts. While done in what is clearly a masterful way, the subtle marks near the edge of the flat area clearly show the undulations of the hand of the maker. It definitely made me think about how our modern sensibilities expect a machined level of perfection on all surfaces and if I was to see a drawing of this table, I would expect that those marks wouldn't be there. I wonder how the maker and owner of this piece thought about this in their time. I am certainly aware of hand tool marks being prized on some modern work, such as chairs, for their proof of the presence of the hand of the maker, but I can 't help but wonder what it was like when the maker was obvious simply by the existence of the piece.

A week from today is the first class that I'll host in my Rollinsford NH school, there is still space to join me to make a fan back or balloon back. I am excited to get the ball rolling!

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