Featured on PDR in the collection Chromolithographs of Paper Lanterns (ca. 1880)

The chromolithographs collected below, from a late-nineteenth-century catalog published in Baden-Württemberg, advertise paper lanterns in the style of those still carried during St. Martin’s Day celebrations. They speak perhaps to the changing seasons, a last grasping after the green hills and grinning sun lost to summer memories. These lanterns were manufactured by the C. Riethmüller company, founded in 1855 by the eponymous bookseller, which continues to sell balloons, bunting, and other party goods. Originally the lanterns were shaped with scissors and colored by hand. An unexpected demand for the beautiful objects pushed Riethmüller toward industrial methods, and he soon launched a line of Japanese designs, with salesmen representing his goods in Switzerland, Italy, Spain, and Austria. An 1886 trade magazine for papermakers recommended visiting the…