Owner : Joseph D. Baumann

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Item Name	Fraktur	Image1
Other Owner(s)	Nil
Category	Documents
Year	Early: 1870 - Late: 1880
Description	Commercial broadside with a large drawing of Adam, Eve, and the Serpent in an apple tree with text below. The man and woman in the drawing are wearing loincloths, and have brown markings on their upper and lower bodies, and the mid section of their bodies are plain white. The woman has very long hair and is handing an apple to the man with one hand, and picking an apple from the tree with the other. The tree has a trunk outlined in brown, green leaves, with many red and yellow apples. There is a brown, green, and orange snake with a face, curling up the trunk and through the limbs, carrying an apple in its mouth. The snake is near Eve's uplifted hand. Beneath the tree is a line of geometric designs in brown and red, followed by a section of German Gothic text. The title of the text is "Mel. Herlzlich thut mich verlanger a.". The text is a rhymed version of Genesis chapters 1-3 inclusive. Surrounding the drawing and text there are a series of borders, from the outside in they are: black line, black slanted lines, pink line, connected black "S" pattern with red and green dots, pink line, and a black line. In each upper corner, there is green leaves, and a small pink and black face with red underneath. This Fraktur drawing was done by Joseph D. Bauman (1815-1889) between 1870 and 1889. Joseph was one of the last practicing Fraktur artists in Ontario. Occasionally his work was a combination of traditional elements and more modern forms. In this case, He has embellished a commercially printed text. The Bauman family roots were in Berks County, Pennsylvania, but he was born near Waterloo and farmed near St. Jacobs. Several bookplates, family records and pictorial drawings are attributed to him and it appears that most of his work was done past the 1860's. His work is similar to that of Abraham Latschaw and Isaac Z. Hunsicker. He retained some elements from both of these early Fraktur artists, but he also copied motifs from printed forms. Bauman produced many drawings of trees and birds for children and grandchildren, with simple texts, as well as many family records which he lettered and embellished with geometric designs.
Maker\Attribution	Joseph D. Bauman
Collection	Joseph Schneider Haus Museum Contact : 466 Queen St. S. Kitchener 519-742-7752 www.region.waterloo.on.ca
Accession No.	1997.048.001

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