Description: This is wonderful and RARE Antique American Folk Art Pennsylvania Dutch Amish Fraktur Artwork, a Hand Painted Lithograph on paper, which dates to 1837. This piece is a Birth or Baptismal Certificate, known as Geburts und Taufschein, printed by A & B Blumer of Allentown, Pennsylvania. It is decorated with a bald eagle, birds, baskets of flowers, and verses all surrounded by an ornamental border, and painted in red and blue pigment. It is inscribed with fine German calligraphy, and also includes vibrant additional inpainting, likely with oil paint or gouache. The name of the child and parents are written by hand in ink, along with other details such as place and date of birth. In this case, the parents are Johannes Muth and Johanna Christiana Fredericka Cath. The child was named Johann George Muth, and born in Wheeling, Ohio County, in the State of Virigina. The date of birth is listed as December 10th, 1838. This design, or a variant of it, was used to illustrate the cover of the book The Pennsylvania German Broadside. Approximately 14 x 17 1/4 inches (including frame.) Actual artwork is approximately 13 x 16 inches. Additionally, affixed to the verso is an old auction catalogue clipping of a similar fraktur, dated to 1848 and sold in 2010. Good condition for nearly two centuries of age, with expected handling creasing, speckles of soiling, discolorations, pinholes, etc. (please see photos carefully.) Acquired from an old collection in Los Angeles County, California. If you like what you see, I encourage you to make an Offer. Please check out my other listings for more wonderful and unique artworks! About this Artwork:Pennsylvania German Folk ArtYour guide to Pennsylvania German folk art: a closer look at the form, its origins, and its contemporary appeal.Framed or inset in furniture, intricately designed with text or without, you may have seen it before without knowing what it is. Fraktur, a style of folk art created by German-speaking Pennsylvania communities and executed in the 18th and 19th centuries, was particularly prevalent in Southeastern Pennsylvania. But what exactly is Fraktur, and why does it still command fascination and market interest today?Fraktur (pronounced “frock-tour”) has its roots in the illuminated manuscripts of Northern Europe in the 16th to 18th centuries, when many documents were produced using the calligraphic lettering made by “fractured,” or many, pen strokes. When German immigrants came to America beginning in the 18th century, they brought with them this lettering style, which took on a number of vernacular forms, with the center of production remaining in Pennsylvania German communities.Fraktur documents were often used to commemorate significant life milestones, reward excellence, or facilitate the teaching of religious texts. The creators were not formally trained artists, but usually schoolteachers, ministers, or itinerant artists. Brightly colored and flatly rendered whimsical designs ornamented birth and baptism records (also called Geburts und Taufschein), house blessings, rewards, book plates, or marriage drawings.Several such examples were offered by Freeman’s in 2022, among them a Fraktur birth and baptism record for David Korenborger from Berks County, dated 1813. The striking document is full of many of the visual motifs associated with Fraktur—including hearts and flowers—within an elaborately patterned and bordered work.Such documents served a twofold purpose: they both kept official records of important events like births and baptisms, and they allowed German immigrants to meaningfully personalize their newfound American experiences, holding on to customs and practices from their homeland at the same time that they settled into a new life across the Atlantic. Fraktur works preserved the German language—rather than English—in which the tradition was inaugurated.Not all Fraktur commemorated life events, however: some, like Georg Friedrich Speyer’s Adam and Eve broadside, were religious in nature. Created circa 1790, Speyer’s broadside combined many of the Fraktur methods of the day: letterpress text ran alongside charming, hand-rendered ink-and-watercolor drawings of flowers, birds, and the quintessential scene of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, complete with a larger-than-life snake slithering through the apple tree.Other Fraktur eschewed text altogether, and are instead charming drawings of scenes such as a flowering vine with birds. In ink and subdued red, black, and tan watercolor, this early 19th-century drawing is an excellent example of Fraktur’s simultaneous preoccupation with symmetrical form and its celebration of whimsical idiosyncrasy. A marriage drawing dated 1801 reveals a similar sensibility, rendered in comparatively brighter colors, depicting two flowering vines topped by the nationalistic touch of an American eagle. Works like this would have been created not as official certificates, but as celebratory and auspicious drawings. Fraktur, in its many forms, is treasured and sought after in contemporary markets as an American folk art. Collecting Fraktur allows contemporary audiences to engage with an art form that was foundational to early American communities, but also—more than almost any other form—gives an intimate glimpse into 18th- and 19th-century Pennsylvania German life. Through the milestones of birth, marriage, death, and everything in between, Fraktur painted a picture of the lives of individual German immigrants as they were actually lived.
Price: 975 USD
Location: Orange, California
End Time: 2024-08-26T01:24:54.000Z
Shipping Cost: 0 USD
Product Images
Item Specifics
All returns accepted: ReturnsNotAccepted
Artist: Unknown
Size: Medium
Signed: Yes
Period: Early 19th Century (1800-1830)
Material: Paper
Region of Origin: Pennsylvania, USA
Framing: Framed
Subject: Angels, Baby, Birds, Botanical, Calligraphy, Children & Infants, Christ, Community Life, Family, Figures, Inspirational, Ladies, Musical Instruments, Mythology, States & Counties, Women, Working Life
Type: Painting
Year of Production: 1837
Original/Licensed Reproduction: Original
Item Height: 17 1/4 in
Style: Folk Art
Theme: Americana, Animals, Art, Biblical, Cities & Towns, Continents & Countries, Cultures & Ethnicities, Domestic & Family Life, Events & Festivals, Famous Places, Floral, History, Patriotic, People, Portrait, Religious, Western
Features: One of a Kind (OOAK)
Production Technique: Oil Painting
Country/Region of Manufacture: United States
Handmade: Yes
Item Width: 14 in
Culture: Pennsylvania Dutch
Time Period Produced: 1800-1849
