Page 12 - May1997

78 NATNONAN" BUTTOI$ BI-IN"N,ETNN May 1997

New ldentification of a Fable Button

The button familiar to us as "The Blackamoor" can now
be used with fable buttons. The fable is The AEthiop,
page 9l in the AEsop Fable Collection. It goes as
follows:
"The purchaser ofa black servant was persuaded
that the color ofhis skin arose from dirt contacted
through the neglect of his former masters. On bringing
him home, he resorted to every means of cleaning, and
subjected the man to incessant scrubbings. The servant
caught a severe cold, but he never changed his color or
complexion.
Moral: What's bred in the bone will stick to the flesh."
-Madge Sweat

New Identifications
On Plate 227 of The Big Book of Buttons is shown eleven of rhe Austrian
buttons which we know as "Third Avenue Silver". Six of these buttons were
identified by the authors, and now we have an identification for four more of
them. We quote below a letter received from Lois Pool.
"I recently had a letter from Barbara Steingiesser, a National Button
Society member in Germany, and she sent me the following information and I
suggest you make note of this in your copy of the Big Book of' Buttons .
"On plate #227 , #27 is pictured Friedrich Schiller, German poet ( 1759-
1805). He was born in Masbach, a little town near Heidelberg and there rs an
outstanding archive there where Barbara will study manuscripts and
autographs of Schiller and of contemporary poets. She also writes that rn
Masbach they show Schiller's dressing gown, which is very beautiful and
with a button of water-color, miniature under glass rimmed with copper.
Barbara is studying at Bonn University where she is working on the edition ol
the correspondence of the German poet Friedrich Schiller.
"The button shown in the Big Book of Buttons, and delighted to say that
one like it was sent as a gift to Barbara and she writes: "it is a widely travelled
button and the backmark tells that it was made in Graf, Austria, then it
travelled to the USA and now has found its place in a German collection to be
it's show piece". Thanks to Millicent Safro for her assistance in finding this
button.
"Barbara has also identified #18 as Richard Wagner (1813-1883) a very
famous German composer who wrote many great operas.
"#21 ts Helmuth Graf von Molthe ( I 800- I 89 I ). He was principal of the
General Staff of Prussia.
"#23 is Franz Lisft ( 181 I - 1886), an European Pianist and composer, who
was born in Hungary and lived in Austria, France, Germany and ltaly."
-Lois Pool. Secretttrt'