The Winterthur Library

The Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera

Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Winterthur, DE 19735

302-888-4600 or 800-448-3883

OVERVIEW OF THE COLLECTION

Creator: Hyde, J. A. Lloyd (John Alden Lloyd)

Title: Papers

Dates: ca.1920-ca.1980

Call No.: Col. 702

Acc. No.: 03x84, 03x130

Quantity: 33 folders

Location: 9 A 5

BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT

John Alden Lloyd Hyde was an antiques dealer or an antiquarian, as he preferred to call himself, an exhibition curator, an author of books on Chinese export porcelain, and served on the board of Christie’s auction house. Hyde was descended from 17th century settlers of New England and Virginia, including Mayflower passenger John Alden, after whom he was named. Lloyd Hyde began his career while he was still in college, buying antiques in rural areas and taking his finds to New York City (his native city) where he was able to sell them for a large profit. After graduating from college in 1924, Hyde became an antiques buyer for Lord & Taylor department store, but soon began his own business. He enjoyed traveling around the world looking for treasures. He said he visited every country in the world except one. He wrote many articles for The Magazine Antiques and toured around the United States, speaking on the subject of collecting. Among his clients were Henry Francis du Pont, Colonial Williamsburg, The White House, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Flynt of Deerfield, and the United States Department of State. He worked for the OSS and the CIA, although he modestly claimed that he was only a humble attaché at the American embassy in Lisbon during World War II. Hyde died in 1981.

SCOPE AND CONTENT

The collection contains a series of short stories (generally 2-3 pages long) detailing Lloyd Hyde’s travel adventures while in search of antiques. Evidently, Hyde was hoping to publish a book about his adventures, to be entitled “After the Antique: An Autobiographical Essay on Collecting.” Hyde traveled to Barbados, China, Hong Kong, India, Egypt, Turkey, South Africa, Portugal, the eastern United States, and England. He also took the Trans-Siberian Railroad from China to Leningrad, although he does not seem to have done any antique shopping in the Soviet Union. Many of the stories detail how he found a particular treasure, and some of the stories are accompanied by photos of the treasures in their current locations (The White House, Winterthur Museum, etc.). As well, there are a few photos of Hyde taken on his travels, and a couple of postcards which he collected. Most of his adventures seem to predate 1950, although since he rarely gives the date of a particular adventure, it is not always easy to tell. The memoirs themselves were written in the mid 1970s.

ORGANIZATION

The folders are arranged in alphabetical order by title; often, the first word in the title gives the city or country in which the story takes place.

LANGUAGE OF MATERIALS

The materials are in English.

RESTRICTIONS ON ACCESS

Collection is open to the public. Copyright restrictions may apply.

RELATED MATERIAL

Correspondence between Lloyd Hyde and Henry Francis du Pont is found in the Winterthur Archives.

Books by Hyde are in the Printed Books and Periodicals section of the Winterthur Library.

PROVENANCE

Accession 03x84: gift of James R. Wynn, heir of J.A. Lloyd Hyde.

Accession 03x130: gift of Armin Allen.

ACCESS POINTS

Topics:

Antique dealers – New York (State) – New York – Anecdotes.

Antiques – Anecdotes.

Business travel.

Collectors and collecting – Anecdotes.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE COLLECTION

Location: 9 A 5

Folder 1: “After the Antique: An Autobiographical Essay in Collecting”: preface and foreword

Folder 2: Barbados and Phyfe Furniture (late 1920s)

(includes photo of a table)

Folder 3: Bombay: Summoned to the Customs House

Folder 4: Calcutta: Free School Street and the Hazra House;

Calcutta: Snakes and Hazra Family House;

Calcutta: The Old Church on the Hoogly

(with photo and postcard of Port Royal Parlor at Winterthur and photos of buildings in Calcutta)

Folder 5: Canton (ca.1930) (story of discovery of a chandelier)

(with photo and postcard of chandelier at Colonial Williamsburg)

Folder 6: Canton (again) and the Eagle Platter (1932)

(with calling card of Arvid O. Knudsen; photo labeled on back: J.A.L.H. in Canton, ca.1928, with Ah Fung; photo of hot water plate at Metropolitan Museum)

Folder 7: Capetown, South Africa, and the Salem, Massachusetts, Piece

(with photo of the piece, now at Winterthur)

Folder 8: Charleston, South Carolina, and the Great Paneled Rooms

(with photos and a postcard from the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and a photo of the exterior of a house in Charleston)

Folder 9: China – Macao (early 1930s)

(with photos of a silver teapot and a painting of a Chinese scene)

Folder 10: Chinese export porcelain dinner service bought out of the Louvre in Paris (middle 1930s)

(with photos of plate and the Louvre)

Folder 11: Count of Paris in Lisbon (1940s-1950s)

(with photo of a building in Lisbon)

Folder 12: Far East – Hong Kong (1929)

(with two invoices for merchandise purchased in and being shipped from Hong Kong; and photo of set of china, which is supposed to be at Winterthur)

Folder 13: Istanbul: the Funeral, the Falling Balcony, and the Great Bazaar

Folder 14: Khartoum, Ostriches, and the Souks of Cairo

(with photo of a glass chandelier)

Folder 15: King of Italy and the Unexpected Ship (late 1940s; story dated 30-8-77)

(with photo of a house and a Winterthur photo of a table)

Folder 16: Madras: the Mosque of 1000 Lights

Folder 17: Mauritius (in the Indian Ocean): the Dodo, Paperweights, and “Paul and Virginia” (ca.1947)

Folder 18: Naples: Historical Blue Staffordshire and the Wreck

(with Winterthur photo of a plate)

Folder 19: New York: a Cautious Collector and a Rich Surprise

(with photos of wall light and chandelier)

Folder 20: New York: Rescuing Old Paneling, etc.

(with photos of woodwork at the Museum of the City of New York and at Winterthur, a Winterthur postcard, and some correspondence)

Folder 21: New York: the Rittenhouse Clock and the Desk under Park Avenue

(with photo of desk)

Folder 22: Papier Peint by Papillon, and the Second German War (1939)

(with photos of a street in Paris, a room at Winterthur, and a six-pointed star)

Folder 23: Paris: the Hunt for Old Maps, Old Prints, Old Books, Ending in a Surprise (1976)

(with photo of tomb of the Marquis de Lafayette)

Folder 24: Patna on the Ganges: the Story of the Big White House Chandelier

(with photos of the chandelier in the White House)

Folder 25: Peking (1929)

(with photo of man in a rickshaw and photo of carved emeralds)

Folder 26: Philadelphia: the House from the Train

(with photos of Port Royal house and doorway at Winterthur)

Folder 27: Portugal: a Ghost in an Ancient Castle (during World War II)

Folder 28: Rhode Island: the Remarkable Day

(with photo of a paneled room and magazine photo of same room)

Folder 29: Syon Lodge and the Heavy Crown

(with photo of garden ornaments)

Folder 30: Trans-Siberian Railroad: Moscow and Leningrad (1928)

(with card of M. V. Yushkevich [Soviet embassy, Peking], card of R. E. O’Bolger [of Shanghai], ticket for Chinese Eastern Railway, postcards and photos, including a photo of a man standing next to an airplane)

Folder 31: Vermont: Finding the Phyfe Piano

(with Metropolitan Museum photo of piano)

Folder 32: “What Do You Really Know about American Antiques?” (ca.1937?)

(perhaps a draft for a talk or paper)

Folder 33: Metropolitan Museum of Art, American Wing (1980)

(minutes of a meeting; Hyde was a member of the Visiting Committee)