Trade card album
This album contains a collection of nearly 1,000 trade cards and related materials such as labels, wrappers, stamps and wax seals of craftsman and manufacturers in Nuremberg. They are alphabetically organized by trade and each section is annotated and/or provided with an index. A remarkable number of trade cards is printed in colored inks. The second half of the album contains trade cards for businesses in other cities such as Amsterdam and Bremen, and seems solely dedicated to the tobacco trade. While the alphabetical index continues, after the letter T, no new cards were added to the album.
The album may have been compiled by the printer of the trade cards, rather than a collector. The consistency of designs, the added inscriptions, and the presence of paper samples of different qualities all seem to point towards this conclusion. Several references are made to Johann Conrad Haller and Johann Christoph Schmid, who appear to have been in business together during the early nineteenth century as producers of colored inks (Farbefabrikant) under the firm name "Schmid & Haller". Whether they produced the cards, or collaborated with an unidentified printer is as of yet unknown.
The album may have been compiled by the printer of the trade cards, rather than a collector. The consistency of designs, the added inscriptions, and the presence of paper samples of different qualities all seem to point towards this conclusion. Several references are made to Johann Conrad Haller and Johann Christoph Schmid, who appear to have been in business together during the early nineteenth century as producers of colored inks (Farbefabrikant) under the firm name "Schmid & Haller". Whether they produced the cards, or collaborated with an unidentified printer is as of yet unknown.
Artwork Details
- Title: Trade card album
- Artist: Anonymous, German, 19th century
- Date: 1829–38
- Medium: Album with brown paste paper board covers and leather spine; contains woodcuts, engravings, etchings in black and colored inks and leaf gold, drawings in pen and ink with wash; wax seals; leather tags
- Dimensions: 14 × 11 in. (35.6 × 27.9 cm)
- Classifications: Albums, Prints, Drawings, Ephemera
- Credit Line: The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 2023
- Object Number: 2023.344
- Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints
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