* Reverend Henry Young (early 19th century)

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Description

Reverend Henry Young
A Fraktur Birth and Baptismal Certificate for George Marsh, Muncy, Pennsylvania
watercolor, pen and ink on paper
9 1/2 by 7in. 24.2 by 17.8cm

having the initial notation George Marsh was born the 3rd day of March in the year of our Lord 1812 in Muncy Township - Lycoming County and baptised the same year by the Rev. Mr. Engel. Later additions in period script read, And received into the German Reformed Church in the year 1833 in June by the Rev. Mr. Wagner and Married on the 21 of September 1837 by Rev. J W Hamen. Further decorated with a elaborately-uniformed soldier on his prancing horse, underneath which is inscribed Union Troop, and a colorful eight-pointed star in each corner. In a period red-and-black Pennsylvania painted frame.

Provenance

Sold in these rooms, Important Americana from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. James O. Keene, January 16, 1997, Sale 6954, lot 45.

Exhibited

The Keene Eye: Selections from the American Folk Art Collections of Mr. and Mrs. James O. Keene, Museum of American Folk Art, New York, 1984

Literature

The Keene Eye: Selections from the American Folk Art Collections of Mr. and Mrs. James O. Keene, catalogue illustration no. 10.

Catalogue Note

A paper label attached to the backing is inscribed To meet the needs of families who lived in the Pennsylvania counties of Union, Lycoming and Centre, Henry Young designed thirteen different compositional arrangements for fraktur. Young's German heritage, his knowledge of German and English, and his occupations as a schoolteacher/organist/pastor are typical attributes of fraktur scriveners during this period. By the time of his death in 1861, Henry Young had drawn over 150 known frakturs made during some 40 years of his life.

On September 21, 1837, in Stark, Ohio, George W. Marsh married Lydia Dissinger, daughter of Johann and Elizabeth Dissinger, who born on January 4, 1819, and baptised on June 20, 1819 into the Bergstrasse Evangelical Lutheran Church, Ephrata Township, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Accompanying this lot is some brief genealogical history for George Marsh and Lydia Dissinger.

Henry Christian Andrew Harmon Young was born March 12, 1792, and died March 3, 1861. He produced fraktur over a forty-year period, using roughly 13 different styles categorized by E. Bryding Adams Henley in 1977. Trumpeter on Horseback is 'style number 7', and among the rarest, there being only five known examples. For further information, see Russell and Corinne Earnest, Papers for Birth Dates: Guide to the Fraktur Artists and Scriveners, Vol. II, privately published, 1997, pp. 826-834.