3-034-777 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Divine Service", by H. Ochmichen [sic], 1871. Engraving of a painting. 'This pleasing, unaffected picture...is very characteristic and suggestive of the primitive, uncorrupted life of North Germany...One feels...that there is much in common between these good German villagers and our own rural population. There is affinity of race and character and modes of worship. The scene in this Lutheran church might, indeed, have been drawn from some English country church were it not for some few peculiarities of costume...and the custom is not limited to Germany of chalking the pages of the hymns to be sung on a black board hung conspicuously in the church, or having movable numerals and letters for the same purpose. The peculiarities of the costume are, by-the- way, more observable in the stout, middle-aged married dams, or widow, seated in the centre of the picture, than in the young maidens around, particularly that sweet girl standing with such innocent, unconscious grace...The "young ladies" here, at all events, do not attend "Divine service" solely to criticise each other's new bonnets and dresses; for bonnets they have none, and the advent of a new Sunday gown is an occurrence which but rarely disturbs this congregation'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.