A Landmark Exhibition
We recently had the pleasure of visiting with some old friends—both human and inanimate—for the exhibition opening of “Valley Culture: Constructing Identity Along the Great Wagon Road” at Historic Trappe. Curated by our friend and colleague, the Pennsylvania-German scholar Lisa Minardi, whose titles include Director of Historic Trappe and Editor of Americana Insights, “Valley Culture” is a beautiful display of Pennsylvania-German folk art.
“Valley Culture: Constructing Identity Along the Great Wagon Road explores the evolution of Pennsylvania German folk art as settlers moved west. From the Perkiomen Valley of southeastern Pennsylvania to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, locally distinctive forms of material culture emerged. This exhibition will help viewers understand how German settlers transformed artifacts of daily life —including fraktur, painted furniture, boxes, and other artifacts—as they settled along the Great Wagon Road.”
We spoke with Minardi, who commented: “We are so grateful to the many private collectors and antiques dealers who supported this undertaking. David Schorsch in particular championed the project from the very beginning, helping us to procure some of the most significant loans for the exhibit. Jeffrey Evans was also an enthusiastic supporter of our efforts to connect the Pennsylvania and Virginia German material culture. It takes a lot of help to organize an exhibition like this, focusing on the very highest quality of American folk art, and we are just thrilled to be able to share these incredible objects with a broad audience.” Featured in this article are objects in the exhibition that we previously owned and sold to private collections, from which they are on loan to Historic Trappe through August 2025.
A sure highlight of this impressive exhibition is the iconic “leaping stag” cupboard painted by Johannes Spitler (1774-1837) of Shenandoah (now Page) County, Virginia. It is arguably the most important piece of Americana that we have handled in our nearly fifty years of business. Remarkably, in 2004 it was found by an estate appraiser for Jeffrey S. Evans Auctioneers tucked away in under-stairs closet of a direct descendant of the original owner, where it was being used as a medicine cabinet—its near-perfect state of preservation owed to the fact that it was protected from sunlight for nearly 100 years. This cupboard is the subject of an essay by our friend Philip Zea published in “Expressions of Innocence and Eloquence: Selections from the Jane Katcher Collection of Americana,” Vol. I. “The cupboard’s design, purpose, construction, and ornamentation are each complex and together express the culture that created it…This complexity is the result of both assimilation and ethnic memory as well as the collaboration of specialized hand skills in a prosperous rural economy,” Phil writes.
Made for the wife of Spitler’s neighbor, the fraktur artist Reverend Jacob Strickler (1770-1842), it is one of more than twenty pieces of furniture with decoration attributed to Spitler based on a signed clock now in the collection of the American Folk Art Museum. This cupboard, along with several other pieces, descended through the Strickler family along with Strickler’s drawing and fraktur designs. At Trappe, the cupboard is on view with a striking chest by Spitler, also made for Anna Rothcub Strickler.
Another dazzling chest is this lift-top chest with drawers made for Daniel Eisz in 1795, a classic expression of Pennsylvania-German workmanship. The unidentified artist shows a steady hand in executing popular Germanic design elements as well as a distinctive style of fraktur lettering. This chest is one of the most impressive within a group made for owners living in northern Montgomery County, near the Berks County border.
There are dozens of boxes in the exhibition, all with exuberant paint decoration. Some personal favorites that we’ve owned include those with geometric decoration linked to Somerset County, Pennsylvania, an impressive “Bucher box,” an extraordinary slide-lid box with stylized tulip and polka-dot designs, and striking examples by the Compass Decorator.
This box belongs to a group characterized by strikingly graphic decoration in vibrant colors, linked to Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
This delightful box features stylized tulips, paisleys, and polka-dotted chickens. The construction technique on a related dome-top example links the pair to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. This box was among the earliest published examples on the subject, included in a 1925 article for Antiques by the pioneering scholar Ester Stevens Fraser (1898-1945).
This unusually large storage box with dynamic floral decoration belongs to a Pennsylvania German group referred to as “Bucher boxes,” attributed to Heinrich Bucher based on a box at Winterthur inscribed “H. BUCHER.” This example was previously in the collection of George Horace Lorimer (1867-1937), editor-in-chief of the Saturday Evening Post.
Of the four exhibited, the two larger boxes by the Compass Decorator, one with blue ground and the other with red, passed through our hands. This prolific unidentified artist gets their name from their use of a compass device in laying out pinwheel and floral designs on dome-top boxes, chests, and small cradles, several with pencil inscriptions naming the owners who resided in the Cocalico Valley or northern Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The large blue dome-top box is the best-preserved example by the artist.
Displayed above this grouping of boxes by the Compass Decorator are two masterpieces by Jacob Maentel, a double portrait of John Bickel and Caterina Bickel, inside their Jonestown, Lebanon County, Pennsylvania home, circa 1815-1825. The interior filled with high-style furnishings demonstrates the interconnectedness of Pennsylvania German culture with the wider world.
Behind the display case containing the miniature is a wholly different likeness: a slawboard with a handle in the shape of a man’s profile. Attributed to Southeastern Pennsylvania, circa 1815-1830, it demonstrates how the Pennsylvania Germans elevated everyday possessions into works of art.
This heart-shaped trinket box is also associated with Southeastern Pennsylvania. Unlike common bandboxes, the exterior of this miniature heart-shaped box is lined with cotton chintz while the lid is embroidered wool. It is lined with a German-language newspaper dated 1847.
Only three drawings of Adam and Eve by Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, father and son fraktur artists Durs Rudy, Sr. and Durs Rudy, Jr. survive. This example is attributed to Durs Rudy, Sr. whose art and penmanship are considered superior. Rudy was born in Switzerland and migrated to Philadelphia in 1803, settling north of the city in Skippack, Montgomery County where he began teaching in a Mennonite school. This watercolor and ink scene dates to his time there and is evidence (along with his teaching pieces, school rewards, and bookplates) of a level of artistic skill far more refined compared to other schoolmasters in the area. He later moved with his family to Lehigh County where he farmed and served as a Lutheran church organist. This scene of Adam and Eve brings the religious theme of the culture to the forefront; the German inscription reads “Adam and Eve were led astray by the Snake in Paradise.”
We encourage you to visit this special exhibition and tour Historic Trappe at your next opportunity. The exhibition is filled with some of the finest examples of Pennsylvania-German art in private collections, expertly curated by one of the leading scholars on the subject. If you are not already a Pennsylvania-German enthusiast, you will leave this exhibition as one.
For more information, visit the link below:https://historictrappe.org/special-exhibitions-currently-on-view-in-historic-trappe/
Valley Culture: Constructing Identity Along the Great Wagon Road
Exhibition catalogue with 116 pages, featuring nearly 100 color images of Pennsylvania German folk art including painted boxes, chests, and fraktur. Available exclusively from Historic Trappe.
