Circa: 1920's/30's
Manufacturer: Jonroth Studios

Nifty piece of vintage souvenir china for architecture or a government building in Pennsylvania which came out of a home. This is a small plate, small dessert plate size, showing the Penna. State Capitol in Harrisburg.

From some internet research, this beautiful building began construction in 1902 and was completed in 1906. It was designed in Beaux-Arts style by architect Joseph Miller Huston. It is the seat of government for Penn., housing the two legislative assemblies (House of Representatives & Senate), judicial chambers (for the Supreme & Superior Courts of PA), and the offices of the Governor & Lieutenant Governor.

We believe this souvenir item was made in the 1920's or 1930's from the markings on the backside, in particular the "Germany" country of origin marking below an artist palette. The Germany inclusion dates this piece pre WWII (pre WW2, WW II). On/near the painters palette it states "Hand Painted, The Jonroth Studios" (we believe this Jonroth mark also dates this piece to the first half of the 1900's, but don't know that for certain). Under this in a slanted rectangle or parallelogram it states "Imported and Painted for Chas. Krauss, Harrisburg, PA." Charles Krauss & Co. was a fine jewelry store located in the city at 411 Market Street, from a 1915 Harrisburg Daily Independent newspaper ad we located on the internet. It was common for these stores to also sell collectibles.

The old round plate has upward curved sides for a diameter of about 6 3/16 inches and sits about 3/4 inch in height. This piece is china or porcelain (it is translucent), and has a transfer design for the building, graphics & words, with hand coloring. There are raised white dots on some of the trees which you can feel, which we think are meant to be some snow or just some white highlighting since there are also a few smaller raised white dots and some raised white lines on the building itself, so they are intentional. Perhaps this was meant to be an early spring scene. Along the bottom of the piece it states "Pennsylvania's State Capitol, Harrisburg, PA."

We've provided 8 images, showing both sides, from differing angles and close-ups. Please note that the camera light causes white "hot spot" reflections, which you can see in different places across the images. Please use the zoom feature to examine closely. This piece weighs almost 5 ounces unpacked.

Very nice overall condition, with no chips, cracks or crazing, but this does have age wear likely from handling and cleaning, not bad nor noticeable on display, but there. We see a a number of scratches and dot scratches/marks on the top side of varying sizes, depths and noticeability (we had to examine very closely at an angle in bright light to see much of this). Among these are one on the left side of the building and below it about 3/4 inch length and at least three others ranging from 1/8 to 3/4 inch length in the brown to the right of the words on the bottom. There are other scratches but most of these are hidden by the intricate design/graphics/coloring. The coloring is still vibrant with clear graphics. The gold line top edge trim is largely there with only a touch of wear, but it does not exactly meet the colored edge of the graphics in all places as made, so you can see white between the graphics and this gold line. As made in manufacture and expected with souvenir pieces, there are pin/pit dots in the pottery, stray black & brown dots and small lines from the transferring, etc.. There are other minor touches of aging via darkening on the base rim on which this sits, etc.

A fun piece to add to any collection of Pennsylvania souvenirs, a collection related to buildings & architecture, historical pieces from Harrisburg or related to PA government, etc.

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