The term fraktur originally referred to an ornate style of "broken" lettering, but it is used today to refer to a variety of illuminated texts and watercolor drawings in the Pennsylvania German tradition, including birth and baptismal certificates, writing samplers, bookplates, and, as in this example, decorated religious verses. John Conrad Gilbert, the German-born fraktur artist who created this illuminated text, was a schoolteacher in the townships of Brunswick and Tulpehocken, Pennsylvania.

Gilbert uses stylized birds and floral motifs to frame his texts, a convention seen in the art of fraktur. The German text reads: "Where is Paradise, with its beautiful trees, / in which God placed the very first married couple? / Oh, Adam had to leave it soon with Eve, / as God's image was broken. / What is now to be done? / I will strive myself to enter the other Paradise, / where Christ dwells."

Gerard C. Wertkin, "Religious Verse," in Stacy C. Hollander, American Anthem: Masterworks from the American Folk Art Museum (New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with American Folk Art Museum, 2001), 300.