The Delaware Art Museum is examining the Bancroft brothers and their impact on Wilmington this month.
The museum’s daylong symposium: “The Bancroft Brothers: An Untold Story” delves into Samuel and William Bancroft's influence.
The brothers inherited the family’s Bancroft Mills along the Brandywine River, and went on to bolster art and green space priorities of the late 19th century.
William's focus on green spaces is responsible for many of Wilmington’s public spaces.
Delaware Art Museum curator Sophie Lynford says Samuel discovered the pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti while visiting England, then spent the next two decades acquiring a world-class collection now at the museum.
"He began transporting across the Atlantic Ocean, and ultimately assembling the largest collection of pre-Raphaelite art outside of the United Kingdom then and now."
Lynford emphasizes the personal importance of the artwork to Bancroft.
"A fully-fledged adult, a forty-year-old man - to discover something that will then occupy him for the rest of his days - you can really understand what a passion that was."
“The Bancroft Brothers: An Untold Story” takes place Friday, January 19 at the Delaware Art Museum with lectures, panel discussions, and a tour of The Rossettis exhibition.
Delaware Public Media' s arts coverage is made possible, in part, by support from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.
