Mrs. Thomas Dekay Winans
Painting of Mrs. Thomas Winans
The Winans were known for their exquisite taste in art. Many of you may not know that the famous painter Whistler's elder half-brother, George Whistler (whose first wife, Mary Ducatel, had died in 1852), married Thomas Dekay Winans' sister, Julia. The future artist, James Whistler briefly worked in the drafting department of the locomotive works, then learned engraving at the Coast Survey in Washington. On his 1863 visit to Europe, Thomas Winans bought some of Whistler's early paintings and the dramatic view of the river Thames entitled Wapping hung at Alexandroffsky until 1925 when the house was emptied of its contents prior to selling out for an anticipated development. The painting Wapping was the American contribution to the Paris Exhibition of 1863 that launched what is still called modern art and Impressionism.
Another famed painter to be connected to the family, not by marriage, but by commission, was Alfred Jacob Miller who lived not far away on his farm Lorraine. He had painted a portrait of Celeste Revillon Winans. The neighbors surrounding the estate Alexandroffsky, Winans' "in-town" house, were offended by the collection of nude statuary. Some of the statues are still here in Baltimore and are owned by a private family which purchased them from two different estate auctions. The statue of the discus thrower at the Baltimore Museum of Art was at one time owned by the Winans and stood in the side yard of the house. You may see a photograph of this in the Sun files during the time period of 1948.