While this fraktur, which is entirely hand drawn, would appear to be early, the use of the drawing compass to produce the pinwheels at the corners of the text and the arch at the top is a feature that is found in work of the 1820s onward. Confirmation among the Pennsylvania Germans had no set age but rather occurred between thirteen and twenty-one at the pastor’s convenience. The artist here left room for the confirmation date, but it was never filled in.

Book excerpt: David B. Warren, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff. American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998.