A WATERCOLOR AND INK DECORATED BIRTH AND BAPTISMAL CERTIFICATE

Property of a Pennsylvania Collector

Details

A WATERCOLOR AND INK DECORATED BIRTH AND BAPTISMAL CERTIFICATE
HENRY YOUNG, 1792-1861, CENTRE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, DATED 1853

Centering a young couple in profile, facing each other holding hands, the man giving flowers to his wife with heart decorated stand in between and text above, inscribed Certificate of Birth and Baptism. Mr. John Bartley, a Son of Mr. Jacob Bartley and his wife Anna Mary, born a Minnich, was born December /the 30th 1852 in Millheim Center County, State of Pennsylvania,/and baptised May the 29th 1853 by the Revd"/Smith. Sponsors were the parents.//
9 7/8 x 7¾in.

Provenance

Chris Machmer

Literature

Corinne P. and Russell D. Earnest, Papers for Birth Dayes: A Guide to the Fraktur Artists and Scriveners (Albuquerque, NM: 1989), p. 466.

Exhibited

Sunbury, Pennsylvania, The Hunter House, Northumberland County Historical Society, "Pennsylvania German Folk Art," Pennsylvania Historical Association, March 1994.

Lot Essay

Active circa 1817-1861 in Centre, Columbia, Dauphin, Lancaster, Lebanon, Lycoming, Mifflin, Northumberland, Snyder, and Union Counties, Henry Young worked as a schoolmaster, unordained minister and farmer. He is thought to have arrived in Pennsylvania circa 1817. Young subsequently appears as a teacher at a union school in Mifflinburg, West Buffalo Township, Northumberland (formerly part of Union) County. Known to have worked in several distinct styles, Young's fraktur have previously been attributed to several different artists (see E. Bryding Adams, "Henry Young: Three Fraktur Artists Identified," Der Reggeboge: Quarterly of the Pennsylvania German Society, (Breinigsville, PA: Fall 1987), vol. 11, #3-4). This birth and baptismal certificate is worked in Style 11, Man and Woman with Flowers (see Earnest, p. 456).