Six early wishing and friendship billets.

Austria / Germany, ca. 1800–1820.

               A charming collection of early 19th-century Glückwunsch- and Freundschaftsbillets, distinguished by the refined techniques that characterised the Viennese and South German luxury card industry: hand-coloured printing, blind-embossing, pierced paper lace, and printed silk insets. In the Biedermeier period these billets were widely used in domestic exchange, especially by women, who selected and circulated them within family and friendship circles. As acceptable forms of personal communication at a time of limited public expression for women, they provide clear material evidence of everyday sociability and emotional ties in the early 19th century. The present group represents an unusually fresh and well-kept survival of this fragile ephemera.

1) Two printed wishing billets with printed silk inlays.

Hand-coloured etchings on laid paper, each adorned with pierced and blind-embossed paper lace in heart- or ellipse-form. Under the hinged lace panels lie printed poems on rose and green silk. One card names the engraver Johannes (Janos) Blaschke (1770–1833), active in Vienna and known for his fine decorative work. Contemporary manuscript dedications and signatures either along the lower margins or on the versos.

Each 11.6 × 8.6 cm.

Condition: minimal spotting, one lace element slightly compressed; overall very good.

2) Two silk-covered friendship billets.

a) Embossed paper card covered in olive-green silk, decorated with an applied wreath of roses and yellow-green corner spandrels. Beneath the liftable central oval is rose silk printed with a friendship verse. Verso inscribed: „An meine theuersten Eltern“.

7.3 × 10.6 cm.

b) Folding paper card covered in violet silk; interior with two pages framed by fine pierced borders.
– Page 1: pierced and watercoloured rustic scene with the verse: „Wie der Weinstock an den Reben, so pflegt mein Herz an Gott zu kleben.“
– Page 2: watercolour floral garland above a printed poem on rose silk.

11.8 × 7.5 cm.

Condition: in very good condition.