Commemorative stamp series - Germany / German Democratic Republic 1987 - 50 Pfennig

Leipzig Spring Fair 1987 On the occasion of the Leipzig Spring Fair 1987, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications of the German Democratic Republic issues two multicolored special postage stamps. Special cancellation from March 10 to May 9, 1987 50-pfennig value: Leipziger Messetreiben around 1804 The draftsman and engraver Christian Gottfried Heinrich Geißler is rightly regarded as the first image reporter at the Leipzig Trade Fair. A large number of graphic sheets on local events, cityscapes, scenes of the Battle of the Nations, depictions of Leipzig folk types and illustrations, which he drew and engraved for Leipzig publishers, have been preserved. Geißler, who lived in Leipzig from 1770 to 1844, was educated at the then young Leipzig Drawing Academy, which was headed by Adam Friedrich Oeser. As a twenty-year-old Geissler went to Petersburg and made with the Russian Council of State, scholars and naturalists Dr.. Peter Simon Pollas an expedition through southern Russia and the South Asian regions of the Russian Empire. Returning to Leipzig in 1798, he and Pallas published several great works of art about the results of the journey with his brother-in-law, the publisher Gottfried Martini. Encouraged by this publishing success, Geißler devoted himself in the following time graphic works, which have been commissioned by various publishing houses in Leipzig. In the years 1804/1805 he delivered engravings to the "Leipziger Messeszenen" for the company EF Steinacker, twelve motifs appeared in three notebooks, one each for the two fairs in 1804, the last issue was on sale at the Easter Mass in 1805 In the cycle, the artist captured quite characteristic moments of the colorful activity that shaped the cityscape: trade in the market and in the narrow streets, the exotic-looking foreigners fascinated him as well as the pleasure-places, the merrymaking on different places of the city, as well as the Showmen and charlatans who came to the "Measuring Time." Apart from this uniquely published sequence of images, Geissler has repeatedly taken up the pages of the fair's subject matter in graphic sheets, thus becoming a true chronicler of his time, the chronicler of the Mass Trade Fair City Leipzig, which was awarded a special postage stamp for the Leipzig Spring Fair 1987 Selected motif is modeled on Geißler's engraving "Vor der Waage am Markt". The marketplace with the Libra has always been the center of the fair. Here, the entire fair took place in concentrated form. After all, all the goods brought to the fair had to be weighed before they could be offered to domestic and foreign interested parties.