Winterthur's acquisition of a Gorham gilded silver hot chocolate set opens a door to the past century revealing a mystery with surprising adventures. The talk will travel from Arcadia to San Francisco to Tahoe to New York and Europe. Characters include Anita May Baldwin, the Kennel Club of Pasadena, King Albert and Queen Elizabeth of the Belgians, and attendees of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Spoiler alert: A member of the ADAF plays a crucial role!

Ann K. Wagner, curator of decorative arts, is responsible for approximately 20,000 objects of silver, metalware, and related composite materials such as lighting, firearms, and animal organics at Winterthur Museum in Delaware. For two decades she has been researching and interpreting decorative arts and material culture through exhibitions, publications, workshops, webinars, and classes. She is an affiliated professor with the University of Delaware and teaches in both Winterthur graduate programs. Current and recent projects include curating and contributing to Winterthur’s exhibitions: Conversations with the Collections and Outside In: Nature-Inspired Design. She recently concluded an institution-wide project to manage the National Endowment for the Humanities grant she received to catalogue Winterthur’s hard matrix organics collections.