Certificate of Birth and Baptism. Geburts- und Tauf-Schein. Diesen beiden Ehegatten, als: Joseph Fraker und seiner ehelichen Hausfrau Catharine... Of these two spouses, Michael H. Miller and his lawful housewife Catharine née Snyder, a daughter was born to the world on the 22nd day of December in the year of our Lord, 1857.
Harrisburg, Pa. Gedruckt und zu haben bey G. S. Peters, (1857). Item #510
Folio broadside. 420 x 330 mm., (16 ½ x 13 inches). Printed text in German, with manuscript additions of family names, date of birth, and county of birth. Fragile copy with tears at folds and some degeneration of the paper due to applied color; expert paper repair verso of broadside.
Scare broadside designed in the Empire style popular in the 1840s by Gustav Peters (d. 1847), the noted printer of Harrisburg. The broadside is illustrated with woodcuts of two large angels, one holding a wreathe and the other a bird. A woodcut image of the American Eagle holding a ribbon with the words 'E Pluribus Unum' separates the angels and is a capstone to the text recording the birth information. The lower portion of the broadside is illustrated with woodcuts of birds, baskets of flowers, and floral arrangements.
The woodcuts are color printed in tones of red and yellow very carefully applied, an innovation that Peters initiated in the 1840s, which became one of the distinguishing characteristics of his printing establishment. The color is uniformly registered outside the lines of the woodcut giving the image a dimensionality that adds to the quality of the broadside. The background of the eagle design is highlighted by blue wash and is the focal point of the design.
Peters, the first color printer in America continued to reproduce this design for many years and it became the favorite of scriveners who purchased blank copies and infilled the forms for years after his death in 1847. With his death, J. Martin Lutz and Theodore Scheffer inherited Peters’ press and printing materials and continued to print baptismal certificates with minor changes for years to come.
The handwriting of the scrivener is very straight forward and legible but unattributable to scriveners working in Harrisburg at the time.
Stopp, The Printed BBC’s, III, pp. 10 & 43-56. Yoder, The Pennsylvania German Broadside, pp. 17-18 and 235-37.
Price: $650.00