1779 - Beautifully illustrated German Fraktur prayer book with five exquisite full-page watercolors
Pennsylvania: 1799. Leather bound. This handmade 18th century Jesuit-related prayer book is a work of Fraktur art, a folk-art tradition created by Pennsylvania Germans using ink and watercolor on paper. The style is characterized by bright primary watercolor washes (reds, greens, blues), stylized floral motifs (such as tulips and rosettes), and elaborate hand-lettered German script framed within decorative borders.
It bears two indistinct owner’s names in the front matter along with a short-hand date “79 ½” (1779 midyear). Likely created before that near Philadelphia or Lancaster or possibly brought to the region by German immigrants.
Leather-bound and measuring 3.75” x 6”, it contains 193 pages (one leaf, pp. 176-177, and both fly-leaves have been neatly excised. It is divided into multiple segments with Fraktur titles in red, green, blue, and yellow. Individual pages are ornamented with smaller decorative headings. Prayers are written in cursive with black ink.
Unlike most Fraktur taufscheine (birth/baptismal documents) and vorschriften (certificates), this book contains five exceptionally well-done, full-page, jewel-like paintings featuring Jesuit iconography of a quality approaching medieval illuminations.
St. John the Baptist baptizing Jesus with the Holy Spirit symbolized by rays of light or fire emanating from a dove. St. John the Baptist is the focal point of the Second Week (stage) of Ignatian Exercises,
The Arma Christi (Weapons of Christ - Instruments of the Passion): the True Cross, INRI (Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum} plaque, Sacred Heart of Jesus, Holy Lance or Spear of Longinus, and the vinegar/sour wine-soaked sponge offered to Jesus when he cried out in thirst. These are often used focus on Christ’s suffering during the Third Week of Ignatian Exercises and are often featured in Jesuit art and architecture,
Jesus praying on the Mount of Olives (Gethsemane) the night before his crucifixion is also a central focus of the Third Week of Ignatian exercises,
St. John Nepomucene, a priest, who was tortured and thrown to his death from a bridge by King Wenceslaus IV for refusing to break the seal of confession. His veneration was heavily promoted by the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, in the 18th century, and
St. Aloysius de Gonzaga (a Jesuit priest who died while caring for victims of an epidemic).
The use of shorthand fraction dates (like 79 ½”) is well-documented in Grotefend’s Taschenbuch der Zeitrechnung des deutschen Mittelalters un der Neuziet (Pocket Book of Chronology of the German Middle Ages and Modern Times.). Very good. Item #010780At the time of this prayer book, the Society of Jesus had been officially abolished by the Pope for reasons too complicated to relate here. Yet, the former Jesuits continued to operate as a "Select Body of the Clergy" to form hubs in Philadelphia, Hannover, and Lancaster, from whence, despite the ongoing American Revolution, priests, like Father Ferdinand Farmer (Ferdinand Steinmeyer) traveled on horseback across southeastern Pennsylvania (including Lancaster), Delaware, and New Jersey to minister to scattered Catholic families.
(For more information, see McManus’s “Prayer Books of German Catholics in Eighteenth-Century America” online at the University of Notre Dame Rare Books & Special Collections website, “Pennsylvania German Fraktur and Manuscripts” online at the Free Library of Philadelphia, and “Ferdinand Steinmeyer” at the New Advent website.)
At the time of listing, there are two similar prayer books for sale in the trade with illustrations of a lesser quality. The Rare Book Hub and ABSA show two similar prayer books have been sold at auction. Several are in the collection of the Free Library of Philadelphia.
Exceptionally well done, but with excised free-end papers and one leaf of text, so priced accordingly.
.Price: $2,750.00