Religious Text with Two Women in Striped Dressesc. 1834Sheet: 12 1/4 x 8 " (31.1 x 20.3 cm)
Frame: 19 1/4 x 15 1/2 x 1 " (48.9 x 39.4 x 2.5 cm)Ink, watercolor, and gouache on paperGift of Ralph Esmerian2013.1.360Executed in brilliantly-colored yellow, red, blue, and black watercolor on paper with paired birds and stylized angels in the upper register and figures of two stylized ladies in the lower register each wearing a striped dress and blue hat, at center a heart inscribed with a religious text rendered in alternating lines of red and black ornamental German calligraphy. fraktur1547743999P1.2001.251Samuel GottschallBooks/Manuscripts/Information ArtifactsThe American Folk Art Museum believes this work to be in the public domain.Pennsylvania GermanGerman inscription; Translation: "When I see a beautiful girl, to whom God has given so much beauty, I have to think: God who could create out of nothing so many beautiful things must be much greater than we can imagine. Who loves Jesus must love the One who will take you into heaven."United StatesPennsylvaniaWorks on PaperBeatrice B. Garvan and Charles F. Hummel, The Pennsylvania Germans: A Celebration of Their Arts 1683-1850 (Philadelphia: The Philadelphia Museum of Art and The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, 1982), fig. 32
Pennsylvania German Fraktur, Publications of the Pennsylvania German Society, figs. 168, 215, 733.
Sandra Wilmot, "More Than Just Hearts and Flowers," Americana, vol. 10, no. 4 (September/October 1982), 31.
Maine Antiques Digest (December 1980), 32A
"Sotheby's Wetzel Sale: A $3.2 Million House Sale," Maine Antique Digest, December 1980, 32-A"...catalogued as 'Schwenkfelder' and by M. Gottschall....However, the Gottschalls were Mennonites, not Schwenkfelders, though they lived among the Schwenkfelder in Montgomery County" (MAD)Fraktur was often made as a gift or reward from a teacher to a student. Although the incentive for this religious text is not known, the inscription speaks of a beautiful child and God’s love. Samuel Gottschall was the eighth son in a family of Mennonite schoolteachers and fraktur artists in Pennsylvania. His father, Bishop Jacob Gottschall, taught at two of the oldest Mennonite meetinghouse schools in Skippack and Franconia before opening his own school on his farm in Franconia Township. Fraktur writing and painting styles were often generational, passed from teacher to student. Jacob Gottschall was influenced by his schoolmaster, Johann Adam Eyer, when he introduced confrontal, elongated peacocks into an original composition. He in turn influenced his son Samuel, who continued to develop the theme of prideful peacocks in this drawing, which is anchored by two fashionably dressed women, referring to the parable of the five wise and five foolish virgins (Matthew 25:1–13). Samuel’s fraktur drawings are more powerfully colorful, stylized, and simplified than his father’s, stripped of decorative filler in the background, but they still include many of the same motifs, such as the small faces known as “Sophia” faces, symbolizing wisdom.
This is one of more than six related fraktur on this theme created during the years 1833–1836, when Gottschall was teaching in his family’s school. Also a weaver, he abandoned both activities in favor of establishing a grist mill and later a clover mill.
Stacy C. Hollander, “Religious Text with Two Women in Striped Dresses,” exhibition label for Self-Taught Genius: Treasures from the American Folk Art Museum. Stacy C. Hollander and Valérie Rousseau, curators. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2014.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.
To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.orgP1.2001.25118291839 2013 1 36 "...catalogued as 'Schwenkfelder' and by M. Gottschall....However, the Gottschalls were Mennonites, not Schwenkfelders, though they lived among the Schwenkfelder in Montgomery County" (MAD)Fraktur was often made as a gift or reward from a teacher to a student. Although the incentive for this religious text is not known, the inscription speaks of a beautiful child and God’s love. Samuel Gottschall was the eighth son in a family of Mennonite schoolteachers and fraktur artists in Pennsylvania. His father, Bishop Jacob Gottschall, taught at two of the oldest Mennonite meetinghouse schools in Skippack and Franconia before opening his own school on his farm in Franconia Township. Fraktur writing and painting styles were often generational, passed from teacher to student. Jacob Gottschall was influenced by his schoolmaster, Johann Adam Eyer, when he introduced confrontal, elongated peacocks into an original composition. He in turn influenced his son Samuel, who continued to develop the theme of prideful peacocks in this drawing, which is anchored by two fashionably dressed women, referring to the parable of the five wise and five foolish virgins (Matthew 25:1–13). Samuel’s fraktur drawings are more powerfully colorful, stylized, and simplified than his father’s, stripped of decorative filler in the background, but they still include many of the same motifs, such as the small faces known as “Sophia” faces, symbolizing wisdom.
This is one of more than six related fraktur on this theme created during the years 1833–1836, when Gottschall was teaching in his family’s school. Also a weaver, he abandoned both activities in favor of establishing a grist mill and later a clover mill.
Stacy C. Hollander, “Religious Text with Two Women in Striped Dresses,” exhibition label for Self-Taught Genius: Treasures from the American Folk Art Museum. Stacy C. Hollander and Valérie Rousseau, curators. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2014.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.
To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.org