The Fritz Mackensen painting titled Doodenbeer painted around 1900 has this unusual title. What does the title mean? I hear it might mean death beer, but this painting is about a funeral scenario and no beer is involved or seen in the painting.
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It's definitely not 'beer'. It's something about the verb 'to bear' meaning 'to carry, to support': https://translate.google.com/#nl/en/beer – Yellow Sky Jan 20 '17 at 23:13
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@YellowSky. What makes you think it is Dutch? Fritz Mackensen was German. – fdb Jan 21 '17 at 00:28
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“Doodenbeer” is North German dialect (Plattdeutsch). Literally it does indeed mean “death beer”. It is a drink taken after a funeral, then, in a broader sense, a funeral ceremony or wake itself.
See the entries “Beer” and “Doodenbeer” here: http://neon.niederlandistik.fu-berlin.de/en/plattdeutsch/wb?buchstaben=B
fdb
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The title means "A wake in the house of the deceased", beer here means 'to bear, to support', and it's most probably the latter meaning which is relevant here.
Yellow Sky
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