Early Works on Paper
PRESENTATION FRAKTUR OF A DOUBLE EAGLE
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  • David Kulp (1777–1834)
  • Bucks County, Pennsylvania
  • 1815
  • Watercolor on paper
  • 7 5/8 x 6 1/4"
  • American Folk Art Museum, gift of Ralph Esmerian, 2005.8.40
  • Although birds were endlessly fascinating to the Pennsylvania Germans and served as models for worship in song, as some hymn texts attest, the birds on this fraktur reach beyond the normal array of songbirds and parrots they referenced. The double eagle—or doppelter Adler in the dialect, and a distant kin bird to those on the Hapsburg imperial arms—is the work of David Kulp, whose frakturs are rarely signed. Kulp was a schoolmaster in the northwestern townships of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in a Mennonite community that dates to about 1726. In 1782, he enrolled in classes taught by schoolmaster Johann Adam Eyer, from whom he received a decorated Marburg hymnal in 1783. Kulp married Mary Landis and taught at the very schools in which Eyer had taught. There he made large quantities of Notenbüchlein, or booklets of musical notation, and bookplates for numerous hymnals. He also served as a scrivener, auction clerk, auditor, appraiser, and assessor.

    Almost Siamese in their twinship, the eagles share feet and tail feathers. They were surely as delightful to the child for whom they were made as they are to the eye today. They were a meticulous tour de force for their artist, too, who patiently crosshatched feathers and drew countless leaves on stems bearing tulips and other posies.
  • Photo courtesy Christie’s, New York