Preview
Scrivener
Friederich Spayer (active circa 1781-1803)
Accession Number
PAG1998.161
Creation Date
1793
Description
Printed three-heart design with stamped decorations of man and woman in period dress flanking central heart.
Dimensions in Inches
12 3/4 x 16
Dimensions in Centimeters
32 x 41
Materials
Watercolor and ink on laid paper
Technique
Drawn, Hand colored, Hand lettered
Print Shop Location
Reading, Pennsylvania
Associated Places
Cumru Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania
Category
Birth and baptismal certificate (Geburts-und-Taufschein)
Motifs
floral, flowers, tulips, birds, hearts, men, women
Associated Names
Peter Ruth, Anna Margret Schafer, Magtalena, Johannes Harman, Juliana Schafer
Rights
Please contact the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus College for permissions which fall outside of educational fair use.
Source
Ursinus College Library Special Collections and the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art
Provenance
Pennsylvania Folklife Society
Script/Text
Fraktur lettering, German script
Language
German
Comment
This is one of three known examples of this particular piece complete with the figures of the man and woman. The images of the man and woman are particularly delightful. The artist added a sword to the man’s ensemble and in his uplifted hand placed a tiny wineglass, as if he is toasting the woman from across the page. The woman’s outfit of a vivid red-and-blue striped dress with checkered kerchief, green striped apron, and a lively headdress holds a flowering vine in her outstretched hand. In one of the other known examples, in the collection of the Free Library of Philadelphia, the man is given a wineglass again but no sword. A fourth example also exists where the man on the right was stamped, then the piece was folded in half while the ink was still wet, resulting in a weaker mirror image of the man on the left.
Condition
Good
Bibliographical Reference
Stopp # 624.2
Published
Boyer, Walter. “The Meaning of Human Figures in Pennsylvania Dutch Folk Art.” Pennsylvania Folklife 11, no. 2 (Fall 1960). p. 14. Minardi, Lisa. Roots: Ursinus College and the Pennsylvania Germans (Trappe, Pa.: Historic Trappe, 2019). p. 76, fig. 3.50. Stopp, Klaus. The Printed Birth and Baptismal Certificates of the German Americans. 6 vols. (Mainz, Germany, and East Berlin, Pa.: privately published, 1997–99). vol. 4, pp. 102-103 illustrated.
File Format
.jpeg
Type
image
Keywords
fraktur, Pennsylvania German, Pennsylvania Dutch, folk art, illuminated manuscript, taufschein
Image Location
Rights Statement
No Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Only. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-NC/1.0/
This object has been digitized in a public-private partnership. As part of this partnership, the partners have agreed to limit commercial uses of this digital representation of the object by third parties. You can, without permission, copy, modify, distribute, display, or perform the digital object, for non-commercial uses. For any other permissible uses, please review the terms and conditions of the organization that has made the item available.
