Diploma of Caspar Friedrich Zeller

The diploma was issued to Caspar Friedrich Zeller (born 26 October 1795) — a German entrepreneur whose name is preserved in that of the still-existing company C.F. Zeller. The business was founded by his father, Johann Georg Zeller, in 1806. Following his father’s death in 1822, Caspar Friedrich took over the family business. The company’s present name retains his initials — C.F., Caspar Friedrich.

The history of the Zeller family is closely connected with the first decades of the development of lithography. In 1809, Johann Georg Zeller acquired an interest in the lithographic equipment of Alois Senefelder, the inventor of lithography, and began publishing activities. In 1815, Zeller’s lithographic establishment passed to the artist and lithographer Josef Anton Selb; in 1817, Selb produced a series of 36 lithographs depicting prominent personalities.

It was during this period, on 13 March 1818, that the 22-year-old Caspar Friedrich Zeller was issued this Masonic diploma. In the same year, the Zeller enterprise occupied a notable place in Munich’s artistic life: Johann Georg Zeller organised Munich’s first art and industrial exhibition, which was visited by King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria.

The document was issued by the Düsseldorf lodge “Zu den drei Verbündeten” (“The Three Allies”). It was founded on 6 August 1806, during the Napoleonic Grand Duchy of Berg, originally under the name “Zum heiligen Joachim”. The name was associated with the ruler of the state, Joachim Murat — Marshal of France, Napoleon’s brother-in-law, and a Freemason. The lodge received its constitution from the Grand Orient de France. Following the end of French rule, in early 1814 it joined the Berlin-based Große National-Mutterloge “Zu den drei Weltkugeln” and continued its activities under the name “Zu den drei Verbündeten”.

The diploma therefore belongs to a transitional period in European history immediately following the Napoleonic Wars, when Masonic lodges in the Rhineland were moving from French organisational structures into the Prussian Masonic system. A substantial archive of the “Zu den drei Verbündeten” Lodge has survived, including membership lists, circulars and other documents dating from the earliest years of its existence; the lodge’s archival collection is preserved in the Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin.

Of particular interest is the subsequent history of the name C.F. Zeller itself. The company survived numerous transformations, the destruction of its Munich premises during the Second World War, and its subsequent reconstruction. Today, C.F. Zeller GmbH continues to operate in Germany in the field of office supplies and workplace equipment. Since 2018, its headquarters have been located in Weßling, near Munich. Thus, the initials of the man to whom this Masonic diploma was issued more than two centuries ago continue to live on in the name of an active German company.

The diploma brings together several characteristic themes of early nineteenth-century European history: Freemasonry during and after the Napoleonic era, the emergence of German entrepreneurship, and the early spread of lithography — one of the most important new printing technologies of its time.