A CARVED AND PAINT-DECORATED WOOD SNOWFLAKE TABLE
A CARVED AND PAINT-DECORATED WOOD SNOWFLAKE TABLE
A CARVED AND PAINT-DECORATED WOOD SNOWFLAKE TABLE
A CARVED AND PAINT-DECORATED WOOD SNOWFLAKE TABLE
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PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF BARBARA L. GORDON
A CARVED AND PAINT-DECORATED WOOD SNOWFLAKE TABLE

JOHN SCHOLL (1827-1916), GERMANIA, PENNSYLVANIA, 1907-1916

Details
A CARVED AND PAINT-DECORATED WOOD SNOWFLAKE TABLE
JOHN SCHOLL (1827-1916), GERMANIA, PENNSYLVANIA, 1907-1916
74 in. high, 26 in. wide, 18 in. deep
Provenance
The artist's family
Adele Earnest, Stony Point, New York
The Alvin E. Friedman-Kien Foundation, New York
Christie's, New York, 19 January 2007, lot 411
Literature
Catherine C. Grier, Celebrations in Wood (Harrisburg, PA, 1979), no. 16.
Adele Earnest, Folk Art In America, A Personal View (Exton, PA, 1984), p. 114.
Richard Miller, Avis Berman, Cynthia G. Falk, Lisa Minardi and Ralph Sessions, A Shared Legacy: Folk Art in America (Alexandria, 2014), p. 189, back cover.
Exhibited
New York, American Folk Art Museum, A Shared Legacy: Folk Art in America, 14 December 2014-8 March 2015.

Lot Essay

John Scholl (1827-1916) emigrated from Wurtemberg, Germany in 1853, settling in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. By 1870, Scholl had moved to Germania, Pennsylvania and he appears in the census lists of that year as a "house carpenter." He embellished his buildings with fanciful trim and decorative elements, such as carved garlands, wooden snowflakes and crosses. His distinctive sculptures, such as the example offered here, bear close comparison to his architectural ornaments, and additionally he employed the birds and tulips that reflect the influence of Pennsylvania-German craftsmanship. He painted his works in bright colors, such as gold, white, soft blue, green, red and mustard yellow. He kept most of his pieces, but eventually opened his parlor to visitors who came to see his work. After his death in 1916, the Scholl family retained his collection until 1967, when it was sold to Adele Earnest and Cordelia Hamilton, owners of the Stony Point Folk Art Gallery.

For more information on John Scholl see Adele Earnest, Folk Art in America: A Personal View (Exton, PA, 1984) and Richard Miller, Avis Berman, Cynthia G. Falk, Lisa Minardi and Ralph Sessions, A Shared Legacy: Folk Art in America (Alexandria, 2014), pp. 188-191.

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