AFA Autumn 2021

Autumn 90 www.afamag.com | w ww.incollect.com The Gottschall Family of Fraktur Artists by Lisa Minardi P ennsylvania German art is one of the largest portions of the Dietrich American Foundation’s collection. Representing the breadth of artistic and religious traditions of German settlers in southeastern Pennsylvania, these objects had a highly personal appeal to founder H. Richard Dietrich Jr., due in part to his own ancestry. In 1767, Germa n immig r a nt Adam Dietrich arrived in Philadelphia on the Britannia . By 1779, he was a prosperous farmer and landowner in Berks County, Pennsylvania. Two hundred years and seven generations later, his descendant H. Richard Dietrich Jr. began to collect Pennsylvania German decorative arts. Today the Dietrich American Foundation owns more than 125 examples of Pennsylvania German fraktur, or decorated works on paper, in addition to furniture, woodcarvings, and paintings made by some of Pennsylvania’s most talented German-speaking craftsmen. Thanks to a partnership between the Foundation and Historic Trappe, many of these objects are now on view at the Center for Pennsylvania German Studies in Trappe, Pennsylvania. The Center will re-open to the public later this year following a year-plus closure for COVID-19 and building renovations; visit HistoricTrappe. org for more information. Historic Trappe is located in the scenic Perkiomen Valley region of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, settled in the early- t o -mi d 170 0 s by d i v e r s e g r oup s o f Pennsylvania German immigrants including Fig. 1: Religious text attributed to Jacob Gottschall (1763– 1845). Skippack Township, Montgomery County, Pa., ca. 1795. Watercolor and ink on laid paper, 13 x 8⅛ inches. The Dietrich American Foundation (7.9.HRD.342). Photo by Gavin Ashworth.