Lot 650
  • 650

Rare watercolor religious text, John van Minian Berks or Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, or Baltimore County, Maryland, 1820-1835

Estimate
12,000 - 18,000 USD
bidding is closed

Description

  • RELIGIOUS TEXT
  • Watercolor and ink on paper
  • 8 1/8 by 4 1/2 in.
  • 1820-1835
Watercolor and ink on paper

Inscribed recto, ink: Supreme eternal uncreated mind/ Lord of the world and parent of man kind/ thou god of power of wisdom and of love / each perfect gift descends from thee above

Provenance

Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, Cambridge, Maryland
Sotheby Parke-Bernet, "Important Frakturs, Embroidered Pictures, Theorem Paintings, and Cutwork Pictures and Other American Folk Art from the Collection of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch," Part III, November 12, 1974, lot 70

Literature

American Radiance: The Ralph Esmerian Gift to the American Folk Art Museum, p. 219, fig. 189

Condition

Minor, old creases and stains as pictured. Glued at extreme corners; otherwise free.
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.

Catalogue Note

Researchers have failed to learn very much about the elusive artist who created this engaging fraktur. A birth record bearing his signature, in the collection of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum, is the basis for attributing this religious text and other works to him.1John Van Minian typically divided his compositions into carefully ruled and differentiated sections in which he placed figures of men (often peering through spyglasses) or women in profile, a handful of highly stylized floral designs and symbolic or patriotic elements, and a text in English or German. He generally wrote in a carefully drawn, ornate Gothic-style calligraphy; his use of cursive script, as in this fraktur, is less usual. Approximately twenty works by the artist are known.

Van Minian created birth and baptismal records, marriage and family records, and decorated religious texts. Although much of his work was undertaken for families in Berks and Montgomery Counties, Pennsylvania, and Baltimore County, Maryland, he also produced a marriage and family record for a couple in Dorset, Vermont, dated 1826.2 His last dated work records the birth in 1835 of Susannah Guysinger.3

Traditional Pennsylvania German folk art often combines sacred and profane elements, a juxtaposition that is especially noteworthy in this small drawing. Here the artist illustrated a spiritual verse with the figure of a standing woman holding a flower; she appears both innocent and worldly, her dress revealing a deep décolletage. The verse itself appears to be from a hymn or poem; the phrase "supreme eternal uncreated mind" refers to Christ, as the Second Person of the Trinity. Isaac Watts (1674-1748), the great English hymn writer, used the same expression in Hymn 170 of Book II of his Psalms and Hymns ("Can creatures to perfection find / Th'eternal, uncreated Mind?"). Van Minian's text also contains a New Testament allusion: "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights" (James 1:17). -G.C.W.

1 Beatrix T. Rumford, ed., American Folk Paintings: Paintings and Drawings Other Than Portraits from the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center (Boston: Little, Brown, in association with Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1988), p. 316

2 James and Nancy Glazer advertisement in The Magazine Antiques 107, no. 5 (May 1975): 817

3 Catalog for Sotheby Parke-Bernet sale 3692, “Garbisch Collection Part III,” 11/74, lot 154. Several reference works cite Richard I. Barons, comp., The Folk Tradition: Early Arts and Crafts of the Susquehanna Valley (Binghamton, N.Y.: Roberson Center, 1982), p. 73, as authority for a later example, dated 1842, but this appears to be a reference to a fraktur by Durs Rudy Jr. rather than Van Minian.