For most tourists, Delaware is memorable for two reasons: history and Rehoboth Beach.

Delaware was the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. It is where the Du Pont family -- which now operates plants that make 40,000 different products -- built the first of them, a gunpowder mill, on Brandywine Creek in 1802. And Delaware claims that a beauty pageant held at Rehoboth Beach in 1880 was the first in the nation.

This tourist, however, had art on her mind during a visit to Delaware last fall.

Among Delaware's art museums, two are particularly notable. Winterthur (www.winterthur.org) -- once a 175-room Du Pont mansion -- has more than 85,000 items of American decorative arts from the mid-17th to mid-19th century in its galleries in the Brandywine Valley. The Delaware Art Museum (www.delart.org) in Wilmington, was organized nearly 100 years ago to preserve the works of Howard Pyle, who is considered the originator of the ''Brandywine School'' of illustration.

But I'm more interested in contemporary art, so I headed to the Newark Arts Alliance gallery (www.delawarebyhand.org/galleries.htm), which has a beautiful array of oils and watercolors, pottery and art glass, jewelry and photography -- all by local artists. Looking for something that would remind me of Delaware, I seized on a painting of cows sunbathing at the beach. It made me think of Rehoboth Beach and that first beauty pageant. A bit of Delaware history.

This is one in a series of postcards by Marjie Lambert, assistant Travel editor, who has been to all 50 states.

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