Cursive Script Calligraphy — auction comparables · Snaplot Comparables

Cursive Script Calligraphy — auction comparables · Snaplot Comparables

kestenbaum· Nov 2019

<b>(MEGILLAT ESTHER).<br />Hebrew Scroll of Esther accomplished in traditional Aschkenazi calligraphic hand on vellum. Black ink on six membranes set out in 24 columns. Slightly faded in places from use. Height of scroll: 14 inches (35.5 cm).</b> <br /> <br /> <br /> <span>Composed (or commissioned by) Abraham Oppenheim of Worms (1633-93).</span> <br /> <br />(Worms): Mid-17th century <br />A most unusual Megillah in which a well known name is clandestinely recorded in the body of the text. Traditional Esther Scrolls are composed either in the “Hamelech” format (the initial word of each column being the Hebrew word for ‘The King’ - or standard text. Since the Halachic laws prescribed for the writing of Esther scrolls are similar to those of Torah scrolls, never would the name of the scribe be added to the text. This scroll, seemingly the only one of its kind, contains a flourish which could only have been accomplished by a particularly skilled, and rather daring scribe: The columns, varying in width, each have a raised initial letter, which together, spell the name “Abraham, son of Rabbi Shimon Oppenheim.” Brother of Samuel Oppenheim the Court Jew at the Imperial Court of Vienna, Abraham Oppenheim (zur Kanne) was a wealthy leader of the Jewish community in Worms and father of David Oppenheim, who rose to be appointed Chief Rabbi of Prague. Abraham Oppenheim was favored by the local German aristocracy, although toward the end of his life his property was lost in the great fire of Worms of 1689. Thereafter he encouraged the Worms community to settle in Heidelberg, where he later died and was subsequently buried in nearby Mannheim. The catalogue illustration above depicts the opening six columns of this Megillah, commencing with the Hebrew word “Vayehi.” Thereafter, the initial letter of each successive column spells out a full Hebrew name. Seen here are the letters A’V’R’H’M (i.e ‘Avraham’) the first name of Abraham Oppenheimer. See L. Löwenstein, Geschichte der Juden in der Kurpfalz (Frankfurt, 1895) p. 89 (where Abraham Oppenheimer’s epitaph is provided). <br />A most unusual Megillah in which a well known name is clandestinely recorded in the body of the text. Traditional Esther Scrolls are composed either in the “Hamelech” format (the initial word of each column being the Hebrew word for ‘The King’ - or standard text. Since the Halachic laws prescribed for the writing of Esther scrolls are similar to those of Torah scrolls, never would the name of the scribe be added to the text. This scroll, seemingly the only one of its kind, contains a flourish which could only have been accomplished by a particularly skilled, and rather daring scribe: The columns, varying in width, each have a raised initial letter, which together, spell the name “Abraham, son of Rabbi Shimon Oppenheim.” Brother of Samuel Oppenheim the Court Jew at the Imperial Court of Vienna, Abraham Oppenheim (zur Kanne) was a wealthy leader of the Jewish community in Worms and father of David Oppenheim, who rose to be appointed Chief Rabbi of Prague. Abraham Oppenheim was favored by the local German aristocracy, although toward the end of his life his property was lost in the great fire of Worms of 1689. Thereafter he encouraged the Worms community to settle in Heidelberg, where he later died and was subsequently buried in nearby Mannheim. The catalogue illustration above depicts the opening six columns of this Megillah, commencing with the Hebrew word “Vayehi.” Thereafter, the initial letter of each successive column spells out a full Hebrew name. Seen here are the letters A’V’R’H’M (i.e ‘Avraham’) the first name of Abraham Oppenheimer. See L. Löwenstein, Geschichte der Juden in der Kurpfalz (Frankfurt, 1895) p. 89 (where Abraham Oppenheimer’s epitaph is provided).

US$6,500

Books, Maps & Manuscripts

<p><span style="color:#9C0000"><strong>(LITURGY).</strong></span></p> <p><span style="color:#9C0000"><strong><br /></strong></span></p> <p><span style="color:#9C0000"><strong>Machzor LePesach </strong></span>Minhag Aschkenaz [prayer-book for Passover]. </p> <p>Rite according to Aschkenazi custom.</p> <p><br /></p> <p><span style="color:#9C0000"><strong>Manuscript</strong></span> in Hebrew, written on <span style="color:#9C0000"><strong>vellum </strong></span>in a medieval square Aschkenazic hand in black, with occasional use of red ink. <span style="color: rgb(156, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;"><span style="color:#9C0000"><strong>Very fine use of many original, calligraphic flourishes.</strong></span></span></p> <p><span style="color:#9C0000"><strong><br /></strong></span></p> <p>ff. (147). Opening few leaves rubbed, occasional staining and light wear, many leaves pricked for ruling. Modern calf; with slipcase. 8vo.</p> <p><br /></p> <p>Germany(?) c. 1280.</p> <p><br /></p> <p><span style="color:#9C0000"><strong>A BEAUTIFULLY COMPOSED, COMPLETE MEDIEVAL MACHZOR </strong></span></p> <p><br /></p> <p>This prayer-book contains the full liturgy for the Passover Festival, including all Torah Readings and Haphtaroth. </p> <p><br /></p> <p>Finely composed with large initial words throughout, including decorative letters (f. 91a). Contains many Piyutim including Apik Ranan Veshirim by Meshulam ben Kalonymus.</p> <p><br /></p> <p>For the Torah reading on the first day Pesach, the name Moshe ben Yoseph HaKohen appears (f. 42b). Likewise, the letters of the name Moshe are highlighted on f. 8b - alluding to the name of the scribe. A Machzor for Sukoth by the same scribe and with the same allusions is presently in the Russian State Library, Moscow (Ginzburg ms. no. 711). </p> <p><br /></p> <p><span style="color:#9C0000"><strong>Previous owners:</strong></span></p> <p><span style="color:#9C0000"><strong><br /></strong></span></p> <p>“An acquisition by payment Todros Sagri, resident of Pinerolo (Italy) from R. Samuel Kunyan” (f. 1a). </p> <p><br /></p> <p>“Asher ben Mordechai z”l Hy”d from Montagnana (Italy) Elul [5]272 (=1512)” (f. 100b). </p> <p><span style="color:#9C0000"><strong><br /></strong></span></p> <p><span style="color:#9C0000"><strong>Provenance: </strong></span>Kestenbaum & Company, Sale 80, Lot 16.</p> <p> </p>

kestenbaum· Nov 2020

<b>(GERMANY).<br />Fürth Memorbuch. A Yizkor - Memorial Volume, 1650-1828.</b> <br /> <br /> <br /> <span>Hebrew Manuscript written on vellum in square and cursive calligraphic in various Ashkenazic hands. With several hundred entries of names.</span> <br />pp. 152. Lightly stained in places. Later calf retaining earlier covers, rubbed. 4to. <br />Fürth: 1650-1828 <br /> <br /> <br />This wonderful manuscript is the Memorbuch used by the community of Fürth on Sabbaths and Festivals when the Yizkor memorial service was recited. It is ripe with genealogical, onomastic, and historical information of generations of Jews from this Bavarian city and its surrounding communities. The volume begins with the prayers following the reading of the Torah and then provides a list of names of Ashkenazic sages and communal leaders from centuries past. The second entry is for Rabbeinu Gershom Me’or HaGolah of the 11th century, the fourth is for Rashi (“for he enlightened the eyes of those in the exile with his commentaries”), and the fifth, his grandsons the Tosafists Rabbeinu Tam and Rashba’m. Earliest is a prayer for Rabbi Shlomo and Madam Rachel, “for they acquired the cemetery of Mayence, toiled for the communities, and annulled [unfavorable] decrees.” Following this are hundreds of entries for rabbis, communal leaders, philanthropists, scholars, men and women of high standing and renown in Fürth. These entries are written in a variety of handsome hands over a period of nearly two centuries. Many of the entries record the good qualities and deeds of these individuals and thus an insight is provided whereby names can be seen as actual individuals. The final entry is from January of 1828: “Remember O God, the soul of an upstanding man, a leader of our community, the Chaver Shmuel the son of the Chaver Yitzchak of Stuttgart, for his fine qualities, honesty, and faithful service to the community. He distributed an abundance of funds to the poor and to scholars. His widow and children donate charity for his soul.” Following this are a few blank folios for entries never made, and then a lengthy section of Yizkor prayers in memory of martyrs from towns throughout Germany and Poland: 39 German towns and cities are recorded and 35 Polish locations named. Communities afflicted by the Chmelnitsky massacres of 1648-49 and pogroms in the 1650’s are of course noted, yet the martyrs of Poland are also disturbingly recent in date. Jews were first mentioned in connection with Fürth in 1440. Later dispersed, the community was augmented at the end of the Thirty Years' War (1614-48). Its cemetery dates from 1607; the first synagogue was built in 1617. This aesthetically pleasing manuscript is unique and preserves names, history, and Jewish customs, which would otherwise be lost to time.

US$45,000

kestenbaum· Jun 2024

<p><span style="color:#9C0000"><strong>TAITATSAK, YOSEPH. </strong></span></p> <p><span style="color:#9C0000"><strong>KAF HAKETORETH </strong></span>[Kabbalistic-apocalyptic commentary to Book of Psalms / Tehilim]. </p> <p><span style="color:#9C0000"><strong><br /></strong></span></p> <p><span style="color:#9C0000"><strong>HEBREW MANUSCRIPT. Composed shortly after the Expulsion from Spain in 1492. </strong></span></p> <p><span style="color:#9C0000"><strong><br /></strong></span>Written on paper in dark brown ink by Saadiah ben Moshe of Mesila (Algeria) for Judah Zizah, and completed on Sunday, 35th day of the Omer, 1558. 175 leaves on laid paper (11 x 8 inches; 28 x 20 cm). Oriental semi-cursive Hebrew script with square headings.<br /></p> <p><br /></p> <p>Some worming in first and last leaves, affecting single letters, dampstaining. Modern blind and gold-tooled red morocco. </p> <p><br /></p> <p>Ottoman, 1558.</p> <p><br /></p> <p><span style="color:#9C0000"><strong> Provenance:</strong></span></p> <p><br /></p> <p> Christie’s, Important Hebrew Manuscripts and Printed Books from the Library of the London Beth Din, 23rd June, 1999, Lot 58. </p> <p><br /></p> <p>Kaf HaKetoreth is a commentary on Psalms composed in the period immediately prior to and following the Spanish Expulsion of 1492. Its Kabbalistic interpretations have a distinctly messianic, eschatological flavor and are filled with invective against Christianity, as might be expected of a work by one of the Spanish exiles. </p> <p><br /></p> <p>The psalms are here conceived as serving a dual purpose, both as hymns of comfort in a time of catastrophe and as mystic weapons to be wielded in the struggle against evil. </p> <p><br /></p> <p>While the work lost its authorial attribution early on, recent scholarship has ascribed it to R. Yoseph Taitatsak (author Shailoth U’Teshuvoth Maharita’tz), one of the premier halachists and Kabbalists of sixteenth-century Salonika, whose correspondents included R. Yoseph Karo. </p> <p><br /></p> <p><span style="color:#9C0000"><strong>Thorough study of the volume would surely yield further insight into the theological-spiritual world of Sephardic Jewry in this critical, tumultuous period of its history.</strong></span></p> <p><br /></p> <p> Prof. Moshe Idel lists four manuscript copies of this unpublished commentary: Three in the Bibliothque Nationale in Paris (MSS HB. 845-847) and this manuscript previously housed in the London Beth Din library. </p> <p><br /></p> <p>Two other copies of this work are also known, one in the Schocken library in Jerusalem (MS 15791), and one in the Russian State Library in Moscow (Guenzburg collection 921), the latter copied in Adrianople in 1529. </p> <p><br /></p> <p>See Neubauer, no. 5, p. 2; Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts, Jerusalem, F 4674; G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (1941) p. 248-49; G. Vajda, in Revue de l'histoire des Religions 197 (1980) p. 45-58; M. Idel, in Sefunot 17 (1983) p. 195-201. </p> <p><br /></p> <p><span style="color:#9C0000"><strong>The present manuscript is one of two known dated copies of this text and the only one remaining in private hands.</strong></span></p>

US$10,000

kestenbaum· Nov 2020

<b>(GERMANY).<br />Sepher Takanoth of the Chevra Kadishah of Bamberg.</b> <br /> <br /> <br /> <span>Hebrew manuscript written in square and cursive calligraphic Ashkenazic hands. Principally prepared by Moshe Glick. Title-page very finely composed in pen-and-ink by by Abraham ben Joël Schmanz in Bamberg (see below). Attached: German notes describing the manuscript by the historian Dr. Adolf Abraham Eckstein (1857 -1935) who served as rabbi in Bamberg from 1888-1926.</span> <br />ff. 25. Few light stains. Contemporary boards, rubbed. 4to. <br />Bamberg: 1778-91 <br /> <br /> <br />This Pinkas records the statutes of the Bamberg Burial Society. The regulations ensured decorum and close bonds among members. For example, the first regulation states that gentlemen must gather each Sabbath and Festival day one hour before Mincha to study Torah: Pirkei Avoth in the summer, and in winter, the Haftarah with commentary. Includes notations and signature of Landesrabbiner Juda Katz (1770-1788) and resolutions to make certain changes, confirmed and signed by Landesrabbiner Löb Berlin (1789-1794). On an individually attached sheet are the minutes containing a decision to employ a teacher to give daily shiur. At the end, some notes (Gedächts-Chronik) of a former book owner. The beautifully executed title page features a large crown adorning an oval with the title and subtitle of the Pinkas, with a young man and a lion alongside. Below are animals at pasture with a Hebrew motto allusive of Jeremiah 50:17 “A reward for assembling/ the scattered sheep, gathering.” See A.A. Eckstein, Geschichte der Juden im ehemaligen Fürstbistum Bamberg, bearbeitet auf Grund von Archivalien, nebst urkundlichen Beilagen (Bamberg, 1898) pp. 95-97; and his article in Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums (1924) pp. 307-16. The title page of this manuscript was reproduced in the Bayerische Israelitische Gemeindezeitung (1928) p. 163. See also R. Hanemann (Ed.) Jüdisches in Bamberg: Schriften der Museen der Stadt Bamberg 51. (Petersberg: Imhof, 2013). Rabbi Adolf Abraham Eckstein was a representative of liberal Reform Judaism in Germany. As an historian he wrote numerous monographs and essays on the history of the Jews in Franconia (see https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Eckstein). There had been a Jewish presence in Bamberg since the Middle Ages, with alternating phases of settlement and persecution (First Crusade (1096), Rintfleisch massacre (1298), pogroms after the Black Death (1348), various mob attacks (between the 14th and 17th century). In 1633, the Jewish community in Bamberg numbered ten families, whose right of residence was recognized in 1644. The Jewish community in Bamberg numbered about 1,270 in 1880 (4.3% of the total population). The city of Bamberg is renowned for a medieval cathedral whose chief ceremonial entryway (Fürstenportal) shows a lavish group of sculptures representing the Last Judgment. Flanking this ensemble are monumental sculpted female personifications of the Church (Ecclesia) and Synagogue (Synagoga).

US$7,500