You are bidding on one handwritten, signed letter of Painters, illustrators, folklorists and professors Oskar Seyffert (1862-1940).

DatedDresden, 22nd January 1911.

On stationery Association for Saxon Folklore, which he helped found in 1897.

According to a later note addressed to the writer Fanny Birndt (*24. April 1854 in Kleinvoigtsberg near Freiberg) in Dresden.

Transcription: "Dear Miss, most devoted and heartfelt thanks for kindly sending 'The Last Shift'. I'm really looking forward to reading the folk piece, which also contains dialect-related contributions to our folklore. Perhaps it will be possible one day to present parts of the piece on the occasion of a folklore evening - the Lößnitz local group is currently organizing one. With the expression of the highest respect, you are O. Seyffert."

Note: The aforementioned work by Fanny Birndt ("The Last Layer. Folk piece from miners' life") was published in Freiberg in 1908.

Scope: one of four pages described (27.3 x 22.2 cm); without envelope.

Condition:paper browned and slightly stained; with damage to the upper edge. Please bAlso check out the pictures!

Internal note: Corner 22-6 (Conv. 68) Autograph Autograph

About the author (source: wikipedia):

Oskar Seyffert (* 19. February 1862 in Dresden; † 22. February 1940 ibid) was a German painter, illustrator, folklorist and professor at the Royal School of Applied Arts in Dresden.

Life: Oskar Seyffert was born as the son of a grocery store owner from Bernstadt on the property and the daughter of a well-known Dresden master butcher in the Inner Dresden Neustadt. He attended the fourth Dresden community school, the Dreikönigschule and the arts and crafts school, where he studied theater painting with Ermenegildo Antonio Donadini, among others. Seyffert saw his own talent in drawing rather than painting. He later became a professor of decorative drawing at the Dresden School of Applied Arts.

Seyffert had a son, who died on the 18th. July 1918 as battery commander of the 4th Field Artillery Regiment No. 48 died in the First World War.

Oskar Seyffert was buried in the Tolkewitz urn grove in Dresden in 1940.

Work: Oskar Seyffert was best known for his extensive work researching the Saxon homeland. In his capacity as a folklorist, he traveled to Saxon villages and towns and wrote down his impressions, observations and stories. In his work From Village and City Seyffert expresses himself with the following words:

“Searching and finding makes you happier than having found something. And the […] stories speak of that time. […] They are perhaps more valuable because of their time than because of their content, because the customs and customs that some report have changed or have died out, and some popular items now have to be laboriously searched for in archives, libraries and museums previously green and bloomed happily in life. And if it weren’t to be found in museums, we would ultimately have no idea of ​​the wealth of days gone by.”

He took part in the exhibition of Saxon handicrafts and applied arts in 1896 with drawings.

At the 14th. In February 1897 he founded the Association for Saxon Folklore together with Karl Schmidt and Eugen Mogk. During his hikes he uncovered many old pieces worth preserving. His “first acquisition” was a cradle.

In theIn 1908, Seyffert founded the Saxon Homeland Security Association with senior building officer Karl Schmidt. He had the idea of ​​founding a museum for Saxon folk art. For this purpose, the Jägerhof, which was threatened with demolition, was inspected and renovated from 1911 to 1913. Seyffert explains the creation of a museum for Saxon folk art in the introductory text of his work From the Cradle to the Grave as follows:

“The peoples of the world certainly had their place of honor in the ethnographic collections, decorative arts and antiquity museums opened their state rooms to the rich treasures from bourgeois and aristocratic possessions, but the Saxon people and their art were not given a home. Unfortunately, the obvious is often forgotten or underestimated.”

– p. 4

Now Professor Seyffert has found worthy rooms for his long-standing collection, which will be completed on June 6th with 8,000 exhibits. It was opened in September 1913. He became the museum's first director. Between 1927 and 1949, this museum was named the “Oskar Seyffert Museum” in his honor. Looking back, Seyffert commented on the Museum of Saxon Folk Art in 1924 in the foreword to his work of the same name, The State Museum of Saxon Folk Art:

“I'm getting to the age where you look more into the past than worry about future plans. I have often read and heard people say that the State Museum is my life's work. Now I believe it, so it is.”

– p. 1

Through the journal Notices of the Saxon Homeland Security Association, which was published from 1908 to 1941, the concerns of Seyffert and his colleagues, and above all the buildings and art treasures of Saxony, became known nationwide.

Oskar Seyffert's students included Georg Erler, who worked as a professor at the Dresden Arts and Crafts Academy for 24 years until 1937.

Awards and honors

Golden commemorative coin of Dresden

Letters of honorary citizenship from various Saxon cities

Honorary Senator from the Technical University of Dresden

Honorary doctorate from the University of Leipzig (1932)

Medal for “Services to German Folklore”

Goethe Medal for Art and Science (1937)

The Bergdank – Badge of Honor of the Erzgebirge Association (1937)

In Dresden-Gittersee there is Oskar-Seyffert-Strasse named after him.

factories

Drawings (with Franz Rowland) in Friedrich Bernhard Störzner: What the homeland tells: legends, historical images and memorable incidents from Saxony. Contributions to Saxon folk and local history. Arwed Strauch, Leipzig 1904.

From the cradle to the grave: A contribution to Saxon folk art. Gerlach & Wiedling, Vienna 1905.

A Saxony book for the German prisoners of war. Compiled by Hofrat Prof. Oskar Seyffert… Publisher of the Book Center for German Prisoners of War, Bern 1919.

From village and city: folkloric images. Reissner, Dresden 1920.

(with Walter Trier) Toys. Wasmuth, Berlin 1922.

The State Museum for Saxon Folk Art. Publishing house of the Saxon Homeland Security Association, Dresden 1924.