.
By Rachel Grove Rohrbaugh
Collection Overview
Title: Clarence Spohn Ephrata Collection Artifacts
Predominant Dates:c. 1750-1800
ID: RG01/Art-0004
Primary Creator: Ephrata Cloister
Extent: 8.0 Items
Date Acquired: 04/00/2019
Scope and Contents of the Materials
Item descriptions and numbers taken from Spohn's personal inventory.
Administrative Information
Repository:
Earl H. and Anita F. Hess Archives and Special Collections
Acquisition Method:
Purchase by the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies
Related Materials:
For more information please see https://libraryguides.etown.edu/spohn.
Box and Folder Listing
Browse by Item:
[
Item Spohn 1675: Softwood Love Feast or Communion Waiter or Tray],
[
Item Spohn 1676: Turned Walnut Bread Paten, c. 1780],
[
Item Spohn 1677: Turned Walnut Communion Chalice, c. 1780],
[
Item Spohn 1724: Hand Painted Milk Glass Barber's Bottle],
[
Item Spohn 1727: Redware Deep Pie Plate],
[
Item Spohn 1728: Tin Teapot],
[Item Spohn 2130: Hand-carved Wooden Printer's Woodcut of the Seal of the Ephrata Community, 1766],
[
Item Spohn 2224: Hand-carved Woodcut of Initial Block "W", c. 1764],
[
All]
- Item Spohn 2130: Hand-carved Wooden Printer's Woodcut of the Seal of the Ephrata Community, 1766
- Square block with round seal with inscription around border "Invenit Hirundo Nidum, Jehova Altaria Tua 84" with "Deliciae Ephratenses" across bottom, center design consists of a central altar inscribed "Non Omnibus Nimul.,"altar flanked by shrub, trees and a house with smoke coming out of chimney, on top of altar is a nest of five baby pelicans with mother pelican in flight hovering over babies with branch in her beak, 3-3/16"W x 3-1/4"x 1"H, block is ink stained and shows significant wear, a small burn mark is found on the right side of the block with a 1" long crack extending in from right side. [Provenance: acquired through Clarence Wolfe of MacManus & Sons, agent for owner Michael Zinman, Ardsley, N. Y. Mr. Zinman acquired the woodcut at Sotheby's Auction House, New York, at their Jun. 26, 2001 auction (one of a number of woodcuts contained in lot #156). The block is one of two known Ephrata woodcuts, the only surviving pieces of printing equipment, other than the lead type found in archeological explorations at the Cloister, known to exist, and therefore is extremely important both to the history of Ephrata printing as well as to the history of the Ephrata Cloister. The woodcut was used in two Ephrata imprints: (1) the 1766 "Paradisisches Wunder-Spiel, Welches sich In diesen letzten Zeiten und Tagen in denne Abendlandischen Welt-Theilen...", illustration appears on the book's title page; (2) the ca. 1783 Broadside which serves a memorial of Brother Amos, appears in the top center of the piece. The woodcut is listed in Reilly's "A Dictionary of Colonial American Printers' Ornaments & Illustrations", published in 1975, by the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass., page 216, illustration 969.
