Buchinger, Matthias | Completed on Buchinger's fifty-third birthday

Buchinger, Matthias

Fine autograph calligraphic family tree of Thomas & Elizabeth Montgomery Banks signed ("Matthew Buchinger")

Manuscript on paper (291 x 177 mm). Belfast, 3 June 1727; browned, three tiny wormholes, hinged to a mat board and matted.

"Family trees, designed and executed for prestigious commissions, played an important role in Buchinger’s career as a calligrapher. … In 1727 in Belfast, Buchinger commemorated both the union and offspring of Thomas Banks and Elizabeth Montgomery, who had married in 1714. (The initial spelling is 'Bancks,' but 'Banks' appears thereafter.) On the branches of the family trees are fruits shaped like apples, within which Buchinger wrote the names of seven of the Banks children and their birth dates, between 1715 and 1725. He left some fruits blank, as was his custom, to allow for additional offspring. Long after Buchinger’s death, another hand added 'Thomas Banks' (perhaps a grandson), born 'February the 25 day of 1752.'"

The whole composition is within an unusually detailed decorative border; the tree is captioned "Thomas Bancks married to Elizabeth Montgomery the 21. Day of December, 1714." Hanging from the trunk a trompe l'oeil frame with the Banks coat of arms. Buchinger has signed the Banks tree with an unusually lengthy autobiographical statement: "Belfast, June the 3d. 1727. This was Drawn and Written by Matthew Buchinger born Without Hands, Feet, or Thighs June the 3d. 1674, in Germany in the Marquisate of Brandenburg, he being the last of nine Children by one Father & Mother. The Same little Man has been Married Four times & has had Issue 13 Children, Vizt., on[e] by his First Wife, three by his Second, Six by his third and 3 by his Present Wife."

REFERENCE:

Exemplars, p. 64; MB, fig. 53; Wordplay 63