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Category: Book Illustrations

Illustrated Title Pages in Upcoming Auction Catalog

Illustrated Title Pages in Upcoming Auction Catalog

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This Thursday, Kestenbaum & Co. is having an auction.  The catalog is available online and the viewing takes place this week.  For those interested in some highlights, the website provides those.  But, I wanted to highlight a theme that hasn’t been noted.  First, a quick background regarding Hebrew book auctions.  [Note, this is not a comprehensive attempt.] There are five auction houses that concentrate on Hebrew books, Kestenbaum, Judica Jerusalem, Asufa, Baronovitch, and, a recent entry, Kedem.  While all five…

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Non-Jewish Iconography in Hebrew Books

Non-Jewish Iconography in Hebrew Books

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As we have discussed on numerous occasions, Hebrew books contain a fair amount of non-Jewish iconography and imagery that is of non-Jewish origin.  See, for example, here, here, here and here.  Of course, Marvin Heller's article on Mars and Minerva appearing on Hebrew title pages, Marvin Heller, "Mars and Minerva on the Hebrew Title-Page," in Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 98:3, Sept. 2004, reprinted in Heller's collected articles Studies in the Making of the Early Hebrew Book (which…

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Review: The Schechter Haggadah: Art, History, and Commentary

Review: The Schechter Haggadah: Art, History, and Commentary

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Book Review: The Schechter Haggadah: Art, History, and Commentary by Elli Fischer  Rabbi Elli Fischer is a freelance translator living in Modiin, Israel.  He maintains the “On the Contrary:Judasim with Comments Enabled ” blog.  This is his second contribution to the Seforim blog. Given the thousands of haggadot that have been published over the years, and the dozens of new ones published each year, it is not easy for any single haggadah to separate itself from the others on the market….

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A Conspiracy Theory To Explain A Racy Title Page

A Conspiracy Theory To Explain A Racy Title Page

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We have discussed on multiple occasions the use of illustration of nudes to adorn the title pages of Hebrew books. It appears, again as we have seen before, that even though the appearance of such illustrations are really unremarkable, some will go to great lengths to either expunge or, in this case, explain away the appearance of such illustrations. In the April, 2008, Jerusalem Judaica auction catalog (provided below) they have a rather rare work of R. Yitzhak Hiyut (c….

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Machnesi Rachamim – Praying to Angels

Machnesi Rachamim – Praying to Angels

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For those interested in the topic of the permissibility of praying to angels and the controversy surrounding this topic see the post on Machnesi Rachamim and Plagiarism which has been updated a bit and now includes some interesting scans. One scan in particular, the title page, is a case of a very elaborate and somewhat unique illustrated title page. In the next couple of days I hope to return to this topic and debunk a popular explanation regarding a well-known…

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Rabbinic Portraits

Rabbinic Portraits

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There is a discussion on the always-wonderful-blog On The Main Line regarding a portrait attributed to Rashi. Someone MENACHEM BUTLER raised the well-known collection of famous Rabbinic personalities which appeared on an edition of the Shulhan Arukh. The edition to which they are referring to is the Shulhan Arukh printed in Mantua in 1721-23. This edition includes the standard commentaries as well as the commentary of R. Gur Areyeh Finzi (d. 1753). On the title page Finzi (or the printer)…

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