Rare bookplate for Jacob Ritzman, Karl Munch (1769-1833) Lykens Township, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, dated 1818

Watercolor and ink on paper (removed from original book)

Inscribed (translated from German) recto, ink: This / hymnal / belongs to / Jacob / Ritzman / Lykens Township / Dauphin County / in the State of / Pennsylvania / 1818.

Walter G. Himmelreich, Ronks, Pennsylvania
Pennypacker Auction Centre, "Pennsylvania Dutch Folk Art: The Outstanding Collection of Walter Himmelreich, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania," May 21, 1973, lot 276

American Radiance: The Ralph Esmerian Gift to the American Folk Art Museum, p. 229, fig. 200

Minor losses at edges; otherwise in very good condition.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

One almost enters another world when studying the drawings, Taufscheine, and other fraktur made by Karl Munch. He was born in 1769 in Mattenheim, a town not far from the Rhine in the Palatinate. Early biographical sketches credit him with education at the University of Heidelberg, the ability to speak several languages, and military service against the French, in which he sustained severe wounds. Munch, his wife, and at least one child came to America in 1798 (although he is not on the list of those who arrived at Philadelphia), and he became schoolmaster at the Reformed church in Schaefferstown. Almost at once he made fraktur-chiefly birth certificates but some bookplates as well. He also served at Rehrersburg in Berks County before he moved into the Lykens Valley in northern Dauphin County in 1804, where he remained until his death in 1833, except for a brief period about 1808, when he was at Freeburg, in Snyder County. During most of that time, he seems to have made fraktur.

In the Lykens Valley, Munch taught at Saint Peter's (Hoffman's) Reformed Church and Saint John's Lutheran Church. The bookplate for Jacob Ritzman reveals two aspects of Munch's work. First, his floral style is a post-Enlightenment realistic one, rather than a stylized folk idiom that tends to filter nature through the artist's whimsy; his flowers are realistic, not an artistic interpretation. Second, Munch depicted daily activities and the world around him. The Ritzman bookplate shows a house and barn, the former apparently with a red-tile roof and the latter with a straw roof. The log barn seems to have the forebay typical of bank barns; the house is decidedly federal in style, even though only a fragment shows. Rows of fruit trees are in the background. -F.S.W.