ORIGINELE INTEC GAPER 37 - Sculpture, APOTHEEK - 21 cm - ground natural stone

intec Gaper number 37. See and read the booklet. Collection of 41 gapers, issued and produced by the company Intec in Veenendaal. Only drugstores and pharmacists with sufficient turnover received these, unique, hand-painted gapers. All carved from natural stone, only number 41, the last one is made of resin. The molds were finally destroyed at a farewell party of the Firm in the presence of the guests

Gapers were identification marks for pharmacies, chemists and drugstores. They first appeared at the end of the sixteenth century and occur only in Dutch-, Frisian-, and Flemish-language areas. Most of those still used as identification marks today date from the nineteenth century or are replicas.
The gaper remains a mysterious phenomenon. The origin is unknown. For its feature, the wide-open mouth, there are several explanations. A medical one; showing your tongue for a diagnosis, and then taking the prescribed medicines. Some gapers have a pill on the tongue or a sulfur match in the mouth. Another explanation could be that the patient, overwhelmed by fatigue, lets his mouth fall open. The most common gapers are easterners with a turban. There are also jesters, police officers, firefighters, Roman soldiers and sick

Gapers are real folk-art products and were found only in the Netherlands and Flanders