G. A. Dentzel Moose Carousel Rounding Board

This impressive piece of Americana, a circa 1905 wooden carousel rounding board with a central moose painting (92.25” wide x 33.75” high; Now Sold), was made during the golden age of hand-carved carousels that lasted from the 1870s into the late 1920s.

While the best-known carousel components from this period are the elaborately carved and painted horses and menagerie animals that provided seats for carousel riders, there were many other artistic elements comprising a carousel’s architectural structure.

Dentzel carousel in Glen Echo Park, Maryland (photo: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/md1366.photos.380087p, Public Domain)

Rounding boards covered the inner workings of carousel rods, cranks, motors, drives and gears. Carousels usually had two sets of rounding boards—one crowning the exterior of the carousel platform, and another around the inner circle of the carousel.

This historic photo of a Staten Island, NY carousel clearly shows two layers of rounding board trim - one on the upper exterior, and one on the lower interior. (photo: carouselhistory.com)

Carved moldings, oil paintings, and often mirrors and lights comprised the whole rounding board framework.

The outer rounding boards on this restored Gustav Dentzel Carousel Company carousel at the Shelburne Museum in Vermont are painted scenery panels about the length of our moose rounding board, with mirrors at the joints (photo: shelburnemuseum.org)

Our moose rounding board would have been attached to other rounding boards, with mirrors or small painted portraits covering the seams.

While the functional role of carousel rounding boards was to hide unsightly machinery, they also provided large, flat surfaces for applying paint decoration that enhanced the carousel’s allure.

A restored Dentzel carousel in Meridian, Mississippi’s Highland Park (photo: https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/mississippi/americas-oldest-dentzel-carousel-in-ms-is-amazing/)

The moose typifies a favorite theme for the G. A. Dentzel Carousel Company’s earliest rounding board paintings: an animal in a scenic landscape (Manns et al., 1986). This moose stands majestically beside a waterfall looking out over a lake and shoreline.

The central panel is a fanciful shape similar to a heraldic shield with a scroll-eared top and lobed base. The G. A. Dentzel Carousel Company used this shape for rounding board panels from 1890 to 1910 (Manns et al., 1986).

The ornate shape is accented with painted designs including outlining, scrolls and other flourishes.

These accents are typical of the regal and beguiling carousel designs aimed at enchanting audiences and enticing them to escape into an imaginative world of wonder.

Maker of the Moose Rounding Board

This rounding board was once part of a carousel built in Johnstown, Pennsylvania by the renowned G. A. Dentzel Carousel Company, one of the first and most respected manufacturers in American carousel history.

The Dentzel Company was known for its commitment to quality and innovation, and had a talented and imaginative staff of woodworkers, sculptors and artists.

The company founder, Gustav Dentzel (1840-1909), immigrated to America in 1860 from Germany where his father was a carver of carousel horses and young Gustav assisted him.

Upon arriving in America Gustav opened a general cabinet-making shop in Philadelphia, but as a sideline he built and managed a small traveling carousel.

Dentzel traveling carousel (photo: carouselhistory.com)

In 1867 Gustav Dentzel turned his attention fully to making carousels and hired a staff of skilled artisans, most of whom had also emigrated from Europe.

Dentzel with his employees (photo: carouselhistory.com)

One of the gifted immigrants Dentzel hired in the early 1900s was Angelo Calsamilia (1870-1937), an artist born in Genoa, Italy who worked as a painter in Dentzel’s Philadelphia factory for several decades.

It is likely that Calsamilia was the artist who painted the rounding board we acquired. The photo below shows a carousel rounding board (behind a carved Dentzel carousel horse) in the Merry-Go-Round Museum (Sandusky, Ohio) that is documented to have been painted by Calsamilia. Note its similarity to our moose rounding board in shape and style.

A rounding board in original factory paint by one of Dentzels long time artists, Angelo Calsamilia (photo:merrygoroundmuseum.org)

Another surviving Dentzel rounding board that was likely painted by Calsamilia is now in Vermont’s Shelburne Museum and also features an uncommon moose portrait.

(photo: © Jean Bennett at carousels.org)

*As a tangential exploration, see the Shelburne Museum’s* *Facebook entries* *that chronicle how they cleaned its Denzel horses, rounding boards, and chariots such as the one shown at right before and after old darkened linseed oil and varnish coatings were removed.*

The rounding boards and other carousel elements that are preserved in museums and private collections are surviving components of the hundreds of carousels that the G. A. Carousel Company produced to delight audiences at amusement parks across the country in the late-19th through early-20th centuries.

Glen Echo Park Dentzel Carousel (photo: Library of Congress)

After Gustav Dentzel died in 1909 his sons William and Edward ran the company until Edward’s death in 1928, concluding the 61-year duration of The G. A. Dentzel Carousel Company.

(photo: Shuvaev - own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42187921)

Moose Rounding Board Provenance: Luna Park, Johnstown, PA

The Dentzel carousel that housed our moose rounding board was made in 1905 for Luna Park in Johnstown, Pennsylvania (carouselhistory.com).

An early 1900s postcard image of Luna Park in Johnstown, PA (photo: marylmartin.com)

Luna Park was the new name for a Johnstown area park that was originally known as Roxbury Park when founded in the 1800s with attractions such a horse racetrack and fairgrounds.

Buggy races in Roxbury Park (photo: tribdem.com)

But after the horse racing association moved its races from Roxbury Park in 1904 due to financial troubles and facility rent hikes, a coalition of 100 business people and municipal leaders in Johnstown rallied to reinvent the park.

Among the new attractions the civic leaders planned for the park (including a roller coaster, a vaudeville theater, a grandstand, and a mirrored fun house), they commissioned a fabulous carousel to be built by D. A. Dentzel Company. The carousel opened at Luna Park on Memorial Day in 1905.

Luna Park postcard, circa 1910 (photo:ebay.com)

After nearly 70 years of use, the Luna Park carousel in Johnstown was dismantled in 1973 (www.carouselhistory.com/historic-carousels-lost-1964-2010), at which time the moose rounding board was acquired by a collector. It has had just one other owner in the 50 years since.

This significance of this rare, untouched moose carousel rounding board derives in part from the traceability of its origin to one of the greatest American carousel makers of the early 1900s.

Carousel Art as Home Decor

Antique carousel components are cherished by collectors not only as exquisite artistic creations, but also as expressions of the whimsical side of the human spirit. They also evoke nostalgia—many of us have fond memories of riding on a carousel animal with a parent, grandparent, sibling, or friend.

It is an added bonus that the particular piece of a carousel art we’re featuring showcases a moose, an iconic symbol of the majesty of nature and a favorite biophilic element of rustic décor.

The coalescence of an important genre of American folk art with a quintessential symbol of American wilderness makes this moose carousel rounding board a truly singular historical object for display in a rustic home.

References

Fraley, Tobin and Gary K. Wolf. 2002. Carousel Animals: Artistry in Motion. San Francisco: Chronicle Books.

Fried, Frederick. 1964. A Pictorial History of the Carousel. Vestal, NY: The Vestal Press Ltd.

Manns, William, Stevens, Marianne, Shank, Peggy. 1986. Painted Ponies. Millwood, NY: Zon International Publishing.

Weedon, Geoff and Richard Ward. 1981. Fairground Art. London: White Mouse Editions, Ltd.

Postscript

There are several dozen refurbished Dentzel carousels in operation today across the country—from California and the southwest, to the southern and mid-Atlantic states, through the Midwest and into the Adirondacks (in Lake George) and New England—all offering the opportunity to experience the magic of seeing and riding a historic carousel.

Here is a partial list of Dentzel carousels that are still operating:

Disneyland, Anaheim, CA; Knott’s Berry Farm, Buena Park, CA; Castle Park, Riverside, CA; Fleishhacker Zoo, San Francisco, CA; Six Flags Great America, Gurnee, IL; Indianapolis Children’s Museum, Indianapolis, IN: Riverside Park, Logansport, IN; Glen Echo Park, Glen Echo, MD; Watkins Regional Park, Largo, MD; Lake Lansing Park, Haslet, Missouri; Highland Park, Meridian, MS; Faust Park, Chesterfield, MO; Ontario Beach Park, Charlotte, NY; The Great Escape, Lake George, NY; Canobie Lake Park, Salem, NH; Burlington City Park, Burlington, NC; Pullen Park, Raleigh, NC: Cedar Point Amusement Park, Sandusky, OH; Dorney Park, Allentown, PA; Kennywood Park, West Mifflin, PA; Weona Park, Pen Argyl, PA; Six Flags Over Texas, Arlington, TX; State Fair Park, Dallas, TX; Astroworld, Dallas, TX; Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, VT.