Travel and Botanical Specimen Album of Frederick Beringer

United States, 1882. Very good. Disbound.. Eight (8) leaves from the travel and botanical specimen album of German immigrant Frederick Beringer who, along with his brother Jacob, founded the Beringer Wine dynasty in the Napa Valley in 1875. The pages of this album date between 1868 and 1882, and contain a multiplicity of material, most captioned in German by Frederick. The materials include: several arrangements of botanical specimens; a clipped stamp and postmark; newspaper clippings in German and English; a printed ticket to a masquerade ball hosted by the Arion Society in New York; a telegram from Jacob to Frederick ("Lady arrived be prepared Fred"); a printed ribbon from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania; and a fabulous gouache painting of baskets of Champagne addressed to the Arion Society signed by the celebrated German artist Anton Burger (1824-1905). Two large red ribbons have been pasted to one page and read, gilt in German and black letter, that they commemorate the 10 year anniversary of the brothers' business, "Gewidmet von den Rittern der Tafelrunde" ("Dedicated by the Knights of the Round Table") on April 28th, 1878. Finally, there is an elaborate allegorical title-page, beautifully rendered in pencil and watercolor and dated 1868, with the following inscription: "Seinem Freunde Beringer zur Erinnerung von C. Möller" ("To his friend Beringer in memory of C. Möller"). California, New York, Pennsylvania, and Germany are represented locations, including Napa Valley and Niagara Falls.

Each leaf measures approx. 8.75" by 11.5"; most have tissue guards. Sometime disbound from original album.