To Read

The building at 37 Hauptplatz/1 Kirchenplatz dates back almost 350 years. All of the owners since 1667 are known. Successively, an innkeeper, a market clerk, a cloth merchant and three goldsmiths resided here. Then it became a gingerbread bakery for 125 years. 

The dilapidated building was bought by gingerbread baker Franz Perger in 1728. He paid the hefty price of 1,125 guilders – which was more than many people would have earned in a lifetime. Just for comparison: At the time, an assistant locksmith or a carpenter would have earned half a guilder a week! 11 years later the building was purchased by the Tanner family of gingerbread bakers. 

 

The four magnificent portraits, painted by unknown artists, depict three of the former inhabitants. The first two portraits show Franz Matthias Tanner and his wife Maria Josepha in 1786, at the ages of 36 and 31. Franz Matthias Tanner died shortly afterwards and his wife had to run the business as a widow. After a year of mourning, she married again in 1787, probably for legal reasons. Her second husband was gingerbread baker Joseph Gregor Rosenstingl, who was only 21 years of age. He was probably an journeyman who rose to become a master, and was allowed to continue to run the business. Maria Josepha can be seen with him in the second, somewhat plainer portrait from 1790. After the death of her second husband in 1819, Maria Josepha Rosenstingl again ran the business as a widow until she passed it on to her son Gregor in 1824. 

 

In 1852 the building was bought by Ignaz and Magdalena Racher. They established an ironmongery store, which continued in existence well into the 20th century under the name of Racher-Wagner.