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Details
AN ILLUSTRATED HEBREW ESTHER SCROLL (Megillah), in Hebrew, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM
[northern Italy, probably Venice, 18th century]
2750 x 110mm. Text columns of 14 lines in Italian Sephardic Hebrew square script in brown ink with taggin (crownlets), enclosed within rectangular frames and separated by two handled floral vases on stands with naturalistic flowers and foliage, the lower horizontal border showing scenes from the Book of Esther and the Purim story, the upper horizontal border displaying a repeated pattern of two birds flanking a flower basket, scrolled foliage, mermaids and two rampant lions flanking a crowned shield with a star at its centre (some occasional wear and fading to the border decoration, marginal repair to one of the final frames of text). Mounted on a silver roller within a 19th-century Ottoman Empire silver case, the cylindrical revolving handle, decorated with scrolling foliage, inscribed in typical Ottoman Sephardic Hebrew square script with part of the she-hecheyanu blessing recited before the megillah reading, the octagonal cylindrical body with 8 similarly decorated scrolled foliate and floral panels, inset with three rows of coloured stones on base, middle and upper section, surmounted by a tapering octagonal spire engraved to represent roof-tiles topped by a compressed ball and Ottoman crescent finial with orange bead in its centre, complete with a matching thumb-piece decorated in a similar style.
The mermaids depicted in the horizontal upper border are a central element in the coat of arms of two prominent Venetian Jewish Families: the Baruch-Carvaglio (see E. Giuditta, Araldica Ebraica in Italia, I, pp. 24-25, illustrating an identical 'sirena bicode' to the one that appears in the in the present Megillah) and the Saraval, a famous family of Jewish scholars from Venice (Giuditta, Araldica Ebraica in Italia, II, p.90). In the 18th and 19th centuries many Venetian Jews of mostly Spanish and Portuguese origins maintained intensive trading connections and residential presence in the Ottoman Empire, which might explain why an originally Venetian Esther Scroll was laterfurnished with an Ottoman silver case.
[northern Italy, probably Venice, 18th century]
2750 x 110mm. Text columns of 14 lines in Italian Sephardic Hebrew square script in brown ink with taggin (crownlets), enclosed within rectangular frames and separated by two handled floral vases on stands with naturalistic flowers and foliage, the lower horizontal border showing scenes from the Book of Esther and the Purim story, the upper horizontal border displaying a repeated pattern of two birds flanking a flower basket, scrolled foliage, mermaids and two rampant lions flanking a crowned shield with a star at its centre (some occasional wear and fading to the border decoration, marginal repair to one of the final frames of text). Mounted on a silver roller within a 19th-century Ottoman Empire silver case, the cylindrical revolving handle, decorated with scrolling foliage, inscribed in typical Ottoman Sephardic Hebrew square script with part of the she-hecheyanu blessing recited before the megillah reading, the octagonal cylindrical body with 8 similarly decorated scrolled foliate and floral panels, inset with three rows of coloured stones on base, middle and upper section, surmounted by a tapering octagonal spire engraved to represent roof-tiles topped by a compressed ball and Ottoman crescent finial with orange bead in its centre, complete with a matching thumb-piece decorated in a similar style.
The mermaids depicted in the horizontal upper border are a central element in the coat of arms of two prominent Venetian Jewish Families: the Baruch-Carvaglio (see E. Giuditta, Araldica Ebraica in Italia, I, pp. 24-25, illustrating an identical 'sirena bicode' to the one that appears in the in the present Megillah) and the Saraval, a famous family of Jewish scholars from Venice (Giuditta, Araldica Ebraica in Italia, II, p.90). In the 18th and 19th centuries many Venetian Jews of mostly Spanish and Portuguese origins maintained intensive trading connections and residential presence in the Ottoman Empire, which might explain why an originally Venetian Esther Scroll was laterfurnished with an Ottoman silver case.
Special notice
VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 20% on the buyer's premium.
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Eugenio Donadoni