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An extremely rare and charming find! This large baking art and story book was purchased from a Swedish woman, a collector who moved to Arizona many years ago.
It measures 13 1/4 x l6 1/2 x 1/3 inch.
It appears to have been signed by the author/illistrator who calls herself “the Gingerbread Lady” (the title of the book translated from Swedish to English)
The cover of this Swedish book titled Pepparkaksboken (The Gingerbread Book) published by Almqvist & Wiksells Förlag in Uppsala & Stockholm
At first I thought these extra large illustrations were probably the author’s antique cookie patterns for gingerbread cookies and in a way, I was right!
They are that, but even more. I used Google Translate to find this was a story to be read aloud to children, about pans of cookies in the oven and how they relate to each other.
The the author, Sigfred Westfield encourages the child to ask their mother for some tracing paper and guides the process so children can copy the cookies
I am happy to send along the Google translation of the story with the book. As it’s a bit long to transcribe it for you here.
The large black and terracotta pages would also be very lovely framed, perhaps along with the story as well in a Swedish or Danish or Scandinavian museum or bakery or restaurant. Or any home or eatery that delights in history of the Gingerbread man or cookies. Would be a fun old world Christmas read aloud for children today.
It’s such a rare treasure and I would love to find it a “home” that will enjoy and appreciate it.
The condition is very good- especially the black art pages for being over 100 years old. But has some age related issues of a loosening of stapled pages, and stains on the back of the white pages. Also the covers both have creasing horizontally across the middle with some tearing. Photos taken in natural light will help!
