Sculpture, intec gaper nr 40 - 20 cm - ground natural stone

Intec Gaper number 40. See and read the booklet. Collection of 41 gapers, issued and produced by the company Intec in Veenendaal. Only drugstores and pharmacies with sufficient turnover received these, unique, hand-painted gapers. All made from ground natural stone, only number 41, the last one, is made of resin. The molds were finally destroyed at a farewell party of the company in front of the guests.

A gaper served as a signboard for a pharmacist to attract customers to the shop. From the 17th century on the facade. The mouth is not open to gape, but to take a medicine.

A gaper served as a signboard for a pharmacist to attract customers to the shop. From the 17th century on the facade. The mouth is not open to gape, but to take a medicine.
A gaper served as a signboard for a pharmacist to attract customers to the shop. From the 17th century on the facade. The mouth is not open to gape, but to take a medicine.

Gapers were identification marks for pharmacies, chemists and drugstores. They appeared for the first time at the end of the sixteenth century and occur only in Dutch-, Frisian-, and Flemish-language areas. Most that are still used as symbols 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 person; showing your tongue for a diagnosis, and then taking the prescribed medicines. Some gapers indeed have a pill on the tongue or a sulfur match in the mouth. Another explanation could be that the patient, overcome by fatigue, lets his mouth fall open. The most common gapers are easterners with a turban. Furthermore there are jesters, police officers, firefighters, Roman soldiers and sick people.

Gapers are genuine folk-art products and occurred only in the Netherlands and Flanders.