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Typical Signature

A typical example of Schafer's signature is found at the right. The signature is usually inscribed with angular, separated letters that resemble German fraktur printing, using short, straight or slightly curved strokes. The initials are in capitals, the remainder of the name in small letters. The vertical line of the small "f" in the middle of the last name is notable for its length and emphasis, usually extending well above and below the other letters. In an example below in which the artist spelled out his first name, the "f" is emphasized both by size and by being capitalized.

Monogrammed Signature

In about one out of twenty signatures, the initial letters F and S are conjoined into a monogram, followed by the remaining letters of the last name. An example appears at the left, one of the few signature inscriptions that includes a date. Dates in the 1800's are usually written with just the last two digits; starting in 1900 Schafer began using 4-digit dates exclusively. Unfortunately, the few examples of dated paintings with monograms span a wide range of years, so it does not seem possible to use the presence of a monogram to help date a painting.

Accents in signature

About one in ten signatures is accented with an umlaut over the "a" in "Schafer" as in the example at the right. When it appears, the umlaut consists of two thin lines slanted toward each other, nearly touching at the center; it has been misread as a circumflex. Coran and Nelson-Rees suggest that these paintings may be early works, perhaps done before the artist emigrated to the United States.^{note 1} Two of these umlauted signatures appear on studio still-lifes that may have been done as training exercises, one appears on an unmistakably Alpine mountain scene, and one such painting has a German title, so this hypothesis has some promise, although one report of a possible umlaut is on a painting said to be dated 1891. With that unverified exception, the California paintings that are signed with an "ä" may have been among Schafer's earliest American paintings, done before he settled on an Americanized signature.

Curiously, some signatures appear with an acute or grave accent over the "a", rather than an umlaut.

Addenda to signatures

In addition to the infrequent dates mentioned above, occasionally the letters "S.F." (and in one case the words "San Francisco") follow the signature, as at the right. Two of the paintings bearing the "S.F." inscription are dated 1881, so one can speculate that the paintings so inscribed were executed during the years 1880-1886 when the artist had a studio in San Francisco.

The first name is usually represented only with the initial "F", but in a few paintings it is spelled out in full. As in the example at the left, the signature is frequently underlined. Note also the previously mentioned capital "F" in the middle of the last name in this example.

Good examples of Schafer's signatures, except for the umlauted "ä", are available in two widely available signature dictionaries.^{note 2}

As already mentioned in the section on Schafer's background and training, some sources report that the artist also signed paintings with a wide range of alternative spellings such as "Schaeffer". This survey has found over 300 examples of legible signatures, and an additional 40 reports of signature contents; every one of these is spelled with a single "f". One painting is signed with the umlauted "ä" replaced with the Anglicized form "ae", and a second is reported to have that signature. One signature is spelled "SHAFER" in all capitals; the attribution of that painting is questionable, based both on the style of the painting and the style of the signature. Until more verified examples are found of authenticable paintings with different spellings, any report of signatures with variations other than in the representation of the German "ä" should be viewed with some skepticism. As suggested before, other spellings are found in nineteenth century newspaper articles and advertisements, presumably through sloppy editing, and those appearances may have given rise, or support, to the claims about differently-spelled signatures.

Thirteen examples have been found of attributed but unsigned paintings; two of those have Schafer's name inscribed on the back in a script hand; two more are said to have his name verso in an unspecified hand; a fifth is probably misattributed. The small number of unsigned paintings does not necessarily mean that very few paintings were unsigned; it may only indicate that unsigned paintings have not yet been identified and attributed.

Other signature forms

Several paintings that, on the basis of style, composition, palette, and structure, seem almost certainly to be by Frederick Schafer bear signatures that are in a hand that is quite different from the usual fraktur hand, still in separate letters but using more rounded strokes and different letter shapes. This hand is found most often in small field sketches. One possible explanation is that the field sketches, not being intended for sale, were originally unsigned, and that upon a later decision to sell them, someone else, perhaps Schafer's son, added the inscription.

Two paintings attributed to Schafer are inscribed simply with the initials "FS", but neither of these attributions is very compelling, so these initials may be the mark of a different landscape artist. Works by other artists who share the name "Schafer" sometimes lead to attribution questions, but those paintings are usually distinguishable from paintings by Frederick Ferdinand Schafer by their rather different overall style as well as obvious differences in the form of the signature. Several examples are discussed in the section Other artists with similar signatures.

[Next section: Other Inscriptions]

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Notes

^{note 1} James L. Coran and Walter A. Nelson-Rees, If Pictures Could Talk, page 50.

^{note 2} The several examples in the 1988 edition of Peter Hastings Falk, Dictionary of Signatures..., page 371, are representative, but that source does not include any example of the monogram or the umlaut. John Castagno, American Artists: Signatures and Monograms, 1800-1989, on page 606, exhibits an example of the monogram, but in a signature that is otherwise not at all typical.

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May 9, 2008, 21:43 MDT

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