80. Auction

Carl Seliger, Family and Lineage Arms of the Strauch Family, Armorial Certificate, Heraldry, 1833

Pen drawing, ink and body colour on paper, mounted on a document, inscribed below in Kurrent script Stamm- und Geschlechts-Wappen des Herrn Pfarrer Michael Strauch, the heraldic blazon on the reverse, issued in 1833. On an uncoloured shield three black-grey birds with red beaks and legs arranged two above one; above it a blue scaled helm with a red torse and a grey pointed cap, as the crest a further bird; the mantling in strong red with grey highlights sweeping out widely. Condition commensurate with age, the armorial leaf browned and with a horizontal fold across the centre, the document stained, the coat of arms 14.5x13 cm (HxW), behind glass, framed, the frame knocked, overall 40x27.5 cm (HxW).

An armorial certificate formally granted or confirmed a coat of arms; those entitled to issue one were emperors, kings and princes, later heralds' offices and, in the Old Empire, the counts palatine. With the end of the Empire in 1806 the German courts almost entirely abandoned this practice, and its place was taken by privately produced armorial attestations and drawings of the kind made in great numbers for middle-class families in the 19th century. Such a sheet is a document of art and cultural history without legal effect; under present-day German law anyone may bear a family coat of arms, protection being afforded through the law of names. The Stammwappen is the arms originally borne by a lineage, while the Geschlechtswappen denotes those of the whole family. An appealing sheet for genealogists and collectors of heraldry.