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Gerburts und Taufschein (BIrth and Baptismal Certificate)

Gerburts und Taufschein (BIrth and Baptismal Certificate)

Attributed to: John Adam Stenger (American [Northampton County, PA], active c. 1793)

Made for: Katharina Schmoll (American (Whitehall Township, Northampton Co.), born 1793)

Date: c. 1793
Medium: laid paper, iron gall ink, watercolors
Dimensions:
Framed: 11 1/8 x 15 5/8 x 3/4 in. (28.3 x 39.7 x 1.9 cm)
Sheet: 7 13/16 x 12 15/16 in. (19.8 x 32.9 cm)
Credit Line:Gift, Mrs. Florence Miller
Object number: 1947.76.1

Translation:
Katharina Schmoll is born in Whitehall Township, Northampton County in the year of the Lord Anno 1793 the 13th of March.  The father is the honorable George Schmoll the mother Susanna born Levanin.  The sponsors are George Lehler and his wife Elisabeth. 

A virgin who loves God the Lord and practices diligently her virtue is here on Earth worth more than gold or pearls.

The stylized interpretation of architectural elements seen in the pedimented columns flanking a central cartouche is an inventive frame for the text in this fraktur.  Stenger’s free-hand drawings are recognizable in the way he outlined tulips, leaves, and hearts with short dashes although very few examples of his work are known. 

Stenger was a schoolmaster in Hamilton Township, Northampton County for most of his life although he appears in the records of the Jerusalem Lutheran and Reformed Church in Albany Township, Berks County at the baptism of his daughter, Anna Elizabeth, November 6, 1778.  The religious text was meant to admonish faith, fidelity, and appropriate living, ideals that were tenets of Lutheran and Reformed church maxims.

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