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Apothecary Shop Trade Sign
ca. 1880
Unidentified
painted metal with wood
30 1/8 x 24 7/8 x 18 3/4 in. (76.5 x 63.3 x 47.7 cm.)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr. and museum purchase made possible by Ralph Cross Johnson
1986.65.274
Smithsonian American Art Museum
3rd Floor, Luce Foundation Center
In the mid- to late nineteenth century, craftsmen carved signs for a wide variety of businesses. These large, easily recognizable symbols guided people to the service or product needed, from the mortar and pestle of the druggist to the shoe of the cobbler and the fish of the fishmonger. This visual language of figures and objects was especially useful to the large numbers of immigrants, many of whom could not speak English.
Keywords
Object - other - sign
Object - tool
sculpture
folk art
metal
wood
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