This past weekend we celebrated the Gratz family in style with a recognition of Joseph Gratz by the First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry, of which he was a member, and a celebration of Rebecca Gratz’s 241st birthday (but who’s counting). For those of you who were unable to attend the festive event, I thought I’d share a few pictures.
Here is our curator and director of collections Judy Guston with the First Troop members and our portraits of Rebecca and Joseph Gratz. It was through Judy’s hard work and dedication that we were able to acquire these lovely Gratz portraits in 2010 as well as the recent donation of Maria Gratz’s portrait which was profiled last week in the Inquirer.
Here we have Susan Sklaroff, author of the blog Rebecca Gratz & 19th-Century America and Rosenbach docent extraordinaire! This picture also lets you see the true height of the soldiers’ plumes. Apparently they were taller than the chandelier in the parlor, so the soldiers had to carefully keep to the perimeter of the room to avoid knocking into it.
This image gives you a nice view of the reverse of the First Troop’s early-19th-century uniforms.
And finally, here is Rebecca’s birthday cake.
For anyone who would like to delve further into the Gratzes and their contemporaries, Judy will be giving a hands-on tour this Sunday at 3 PM “From Gratz to Rosenbach: A Collection of Early America Judaica;” this tour will also be offered on Friday March 23 at 3 PM.
Kathy Haas is the Assistant Curator at the Rosenbach Museum & Library and the primary poster at the Rosen-blog