Samuel Bentz(Mount Pleasant Artist, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 1792-1850) - Hand-drawn watercolor and ink on wove paper fraktur birth and baptismal certificate for Samuel Mutsch, dated 1795, with central rectangular cartouche enclosing script surrounded by 5 panels with floral trees and vines arising from pots and 3 panels with bust-length portraits of a young boy, each panel outlined with red and green stipes, the whole executed in red, green, yellow, and black, 9 3/4" x 7 5/8". The faces make this a unique example of Bentz's work. Pictured in Fraktur Writings or Illuminated Manuscripts by Dr. Donald A. Shelley, plate 220. For similar examples, see the Collection of Mr. And Mrs. George W. Scott, Christie's, June 1994, lots 723, 724, and 725; and The Pennsylvania German Fraktur of the Free Library of Philadelphia, plates 364, 365, and 366.