Object Record
Images
Metadata
Object Name |
House Blessing |
Object ID # |
1990.8.2 |
Title |
John Gehman copy of house blessing, 1807 |
Creator |
Gehman, John, 1793-1882 |
Place of Origin |
Upper Hanover Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania |
Date |
1807 |
Material |
Laid paper, ink, watercolor |
Dimensions |
H-15.375 W-12.5 inches |
Description |
"Christlicher Haus-Segen nebst der Zwolf Stunden Gedachtnis" (Christian House Blessing with Meditations for the Twelve Hours). Design consists of one large heart in the center surrounded by twelve small hearts, each representing an hour of the day. At the top are two orange hearts with angel heads and wings. Dated 1807 and signed by John Gehman. Colors: red, yellow, green, orange, black. |
Provenance |
Made and signed by John Gehman (1793-1882) of Upper Hanover Township, Montgomery County. The donor was his great-great-grandson. Copied from a broadside printed at Ephrata Cloister, ca. 1785, and hand-decorated by Heinrich Otto. He decorated numerous of these house blessings, and each decoration is slightly unique. A similar manuscript copy of this house blessing is item #1990.8.3, but it is unsigned, is in a different hand and appears to have copied a different edition of the broadside (with different typeface and without the date at the bottom of the center heart). Both manuscripts descended in the Gehman family, but do not appear to have copied one another. They may have been made around the same time. In addition to these manuscripts, the Gehman family had a mid-18th century version of this broadside printed in Augsburg, Germany and hand-colored (item #1990.8.7). |
Source |
Gift of Melvin S. & Sara Brubaker Gehman |
Related Publications |
Yoder, Don. The Pennsylvania German Broadside: A History and Guide. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005, pp. 200-202. |
People |
Gehman, John, 1793-1882 (Upper Hanover Twp) |
Collection |
Fraktur |