52nd Annual Delaware Show

Lisa Minardi is Assistant Curator, Museum Collections, at Winterthur and a specialist in Pennsylvania German art and culture. These objects and many more are currently on view at Winterthur in A Colorful Folk: Pennsylvania Germans & the Art of Everyday Life, open through January 3, 2016. The show is accompanied by a 70-page, full-color catalogue available from the Winterthur Bookstore (winterthurstore.com or 800.448.3883, x 4741). The extent to which the Pennsylvania Germans had embraced patriotic imagery and American political culture by the early 1800s is revealed by a pair of commemorative dishes (fig. 4) . The Independence Hall dish honors its master builder, Edmund Wooley; the dates 1732 and 1741 on the rim refer to the beginning and completion of construction. The other dish features the Liberty Bell with the inscription “DER FRIHIDE GLUG 1776 WASHINGTON.” Both are a blend of traditional folk art and patriotic symbolism. National politics was not something people thought about only on election day; rather, it permeated their everyday lives through the very objects that adorned their mantels, beds, and walls. Patriotic artifacts were a tangible means of actively participating in the formation of a national identity in which all Americans could share regardless of their ethnic background. Fig. 4a,b. Pair of dishes, attributed to Absalom Bixler or his brother Jacob, Lancaster County, Pa., ca. 1830. Lead- glazed earthenware, 14 ⅛ x 1½ in. Bequest of Henry Francis du Pont 1967.1660, .1662 — 148 —