Select manuscript from this collection: B26  B288 B315  S102  41/107

Country of Location:
Country of Location
Switzerland
Location:
Location
Zürich
Library / Collection:
Library / Collection
Braginsky Collection
Shelfmark:
Shelfmark
B314
Manuscript Title:
Manuscript Title
Passover Haggadah, with German tranlation (Charlotte Rothschild Haggadah)
Caption:
Caption
Parchment · 100 pp. · 20.8 x 19 cm · [Frankfurt?], copied by Eliezer Sussman Mezeritsch, decorated by Charlotte von Rothschild · 1842
Language:
Language
Hebrew
Manuscript Summary:
Manuscript Summary
This codex was copied by Eliezer Sussman Mezeritsch and illustrated by Charlotte Rothschild (1807-1859); in addition to the Hebrew text, it contains a German translation. The Haggadah was created by the artist for her uncle Amschel Mayer Rothschild on the occasion of his 70th birthday. This is the only Hebrew manuscript known to have been illuminated by a woman. Charlotte Rothschild was inspired by Christian and Jewish works, e.g., medieval manuscripts, the biblical cycle painted in the Vatican loggias by the workshop of Raphael and the copperplate engravings of the printed Amsterdam Haggadah of 1695. Charlotte Rothschild left her initials in only a single picture, the seder scene of the Passover celebration, on the back of a chair in the foreground of the picture (p. 42). This manuscript presumably served as model for the famous artist Moritz Daniel Oppenheim (1800-1882). In his memoirs he recalls that as a student he created sketches for Charlotte Rothschild. (red)
DOI (Digital Object Identifier):
DOI (Digital Object Identifier
10.5076/e-codices-bc-b-0314 (http://dx.doi.org/10.5076/e-codices-bc-b-0314)
Permanent link:
Permanent link
https://e-codices.unifr.ch/en/list/one/bc/b-0314
IIIF Manifest URL:
IIIF Manifest URL
IIIF Drag-n-drop https://e-codices.unifr.ch/metadata/iiif/bc-b-0314/manifest.json
How to quote:
How to quote
Zürich, Braginsky Collection, B314: Passover Haggadah, with German tranlation (Charlotte Rothschild Haggadah) (https://e-codices.unifr.ch/en/list/one/bc/b-0314).
Online Since:
Online Since
03/19/2015
External resources:
External resources
Rights:
Rights
Images:
(Concerning all other rights see each manuscript description and our Terms of use)
Document Type:
Document Type
Manuscript
Century:
Century
19th century
Dated:
Dated
1842
Decoration:
Decoration
Figurative, Full Page, Fully Painted, Gold / Silver, Initial, Margin, Ornamental, Text Block
Liturgica hebraica:
Liturgica hebraica
Haggadah
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e-codices · 03/20/2015, 16:22:34

Hijman (Hayyim ben Mordecai) Binger (1756–1830) is best known for a decorated daily prayer book, now in the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana (Hs. Ros. 681) in Amsterdam, which he executed in cooperation with his sons, Marcus and Anthonie, in 1820. He also copied numerous single-leaf manuscripts of contemporary poetry, mostly for family occasions, which are now housed in various collections worldwide. Binger began his career as a bookkeeper, but later worked primarily in a clothing rental business; he also may have been active in international trading. In 1827 he inherited a lending library from his brother, Meijer Binger, to which he devoted most of his time.
Both the above-mentioned prayer book and the Hijman Binger Haggadah typify Hebrew manuscript decoration in Central and Northern Europe at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. The previous flowering of Hebrew manuscript ornamentation and illustration started to decline around the middle of the eighteenth century. With few exceptions, notably a number of late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century examples from Hungary (such as cat. no. 54), the Bouton Haggadah (cat. no. 56) and the Charlotte von Rothschild Haggadah (cat. no. 55), most later works randomly copied iconographic and stylistic elements from the vast tradition of the preceding centuries. As a result, the later manuscripts lack the internal consistency and relative unity of style of the earlier examples.
In light of similarities between the illustrations in the Hijman Binger Haggadah and those in some of the later Haggadot executed by Joseph ben David of Leipnik, for example, the Rosenthaliana Leipnik Haggadah of 1738 and a Leipnik Haggadah from 1739 (cat. no. 45), it is likely that a Haggadah by this artist served as Binger’s primary model. The inclusion of a Hebrew map of the Holy Land, printed in the Amsterdam Haggadah of 1695, though not unique to eighteenth-century manuscripts, may well be considered a rarity.

From: A Journey through Jewish Worlds. Highlights from the Braginsky collection of Hebrew manuscripts and printed books, hrsg. E. M. Cohen, S. L. Mintz, E. G. L. Schrijver, Amsterdam, 2009, p. 142.

e-codices · 01/20/2015, 10:42:32

Die Illustrationen dieser Haggada basieren auf unterschiedlichen Vorlagen, sowohl christlichen wie jüdischen. Die Darstellung der Vier Söhne ist von der entsprechenden Abbildung in der gedruckten Amsterdamer Haggada von 1695 inspiriert, wenngleich nach dem zeitgenössischen Geschmack der Romantik ausgeführt. Die Szene mit Abraham, der vor den drei Engeln kniet, scheint ebenfalls auf diese Bildquelle des 17. Jahrhunderts zurückzugehen, obwohl die Engel der Handschrift keine Flügel haben und Abraham auf beide Knie gesunken ist. Letztlich dürfte sich diese Illustration der Charlotte Rothschild Haggada enger an dem entsprechenden Fresko aus dem Bibelzyklus der Raffael-Werkstatt in den Loggien des Vatikans orientiert haben als an dem Kupferstich der Amsterdamer Haggada, der seinerseits zumindest teilweise ebenfalls auf dem Vorbild des Freskos beruhte.
Andere Illustrationen sind hingegen eigenständige Bilderfindungen. Zwar gibt es bereits in mittelalterlichen Handschriften bildliche Darstellungen der zehn ägyptischen Plagen, doch sind die Vorbilder der Charlotte Rothschild Haggada nicht bekannt. Besonders interessant ist die Darstellung der Tötung der Erstgeborenen: In Übereinstimmung mit dem Zeitgeschmack kamen in dieser kleinen Szene ägyptisierende Motive zur Anwendung.
Die Sederszene des Pessachfests verbindet auf einzigartige Weise zwei unterschiedliche Herangehensweisen, dessen Inhalt darzustellen: als historisches Ereignis und als in der Gegenwart verankerte Feier. Während die Inszenierung der Wohnungskulisse und das Erscheinungsbild des Hausherrn in der Mitte der Szene dem Stil der Epoche entsprechen, zeigen die Gewänder der übrigen Teilnehmer ein Amalgam aus historistischromantischen und orientalisierenden Formen. Nur in diesem einen Bild brachte Charlotte Rothschild ihre Initialen an, auf der Rücklehne des Stuhls im Bildvordergrund. Moritz Daniel Oppenheim malte später mehrere ähnliche Sederszenen, wobei er wahrscheinlich eher durch Charlotte Rothschilds Bildarrangement inspiriert war als sie von diesen.
Höchstwahrscheinlich schrieb Charlotte Rothschild die hebräischen Wörter innerhalb der Abbildungen selbst. Obwohl schön ausgeführt, halten die goldenen Buchstaben aus ihrer Hand keinem Vergleich mit der Schriftkunst Elieser Sussman Meseritschs stand. Charlotte Rothschild verfügte zweifellos über gewisse Hebräischkenntnisse. 1832 schrieb sie ihrer Schwester Louisa, sie habe sich zunächst überlegt, ob sie ihrem Vater wohl einen Brief auf Hebräisch schreiben könne, doch bitte sie nun Louisa, dem Vater ihre Überlegung mitzuteilen, sie glaube, ein auf Englisch geschriebener Brief würde ihm mehr Freude bereiten, da er sich doch als Engländer betrachte.

Aus: Schöne Seiten. Jüdische Schriftkultur aus der Braginsky Collection, Hrsg. von Emile Schrijver und Falk Wiesemann, Zürich 2011, S. 80.

e-codices · 01/20/2015, 09:56:55

In his memoirs, the first modern Jewish painter, Moritz Daniel Oppenheim (1800–1882) wrote: "But the culmination of my instruction came when she illustrated the Haggadah for her uncle Amschel. I made the designs for the subjects, and she carried them out in the style of old missals. . . . For this she procured . . . from the Paris Library manuscripts with illuminated miniatures." Oppenheim is referring to Charlotte von Rothschild (1807–1859), the niece of Amschel Mayer Rothschild (1773–1855), for whom she created the Haggadah on the occasion of his seventieth birthday. She included a German dedication and wrote her initials on the back of a chair in the scene of a contemporary seder. While some of Oppenheim’s preparatory sketches are discussed in art-historical literature, until the manuscript’s recent acquisition for the Braginsky Collection researchers were unaware the codex was extant.
This Haggadah, the only Hebrew manuscript known to have been illuminated by a woman, contains ten full-length and eight smaller text illustrations, in addition to decorated and historiated initials, and smaller ornamental devices. Particularly interesting are the illustrations accompanying Ehad Mi Yode’a and Had Gadya. Framed within foliate designs and placed in a columnar arrangement within the text space, to the left (on pages 92 and 94) or right (96 and 98) of the writing, a small vignette illustrates each of the references in the two songs. The inclusion of these scenes reflects the familiarity of Rothschild and Oppenheim with manuscripts of the eighteenth century, which included such cycles created in that period for handwritten, rather than printed, versions of the Haggadah. In the Charlotte von Rothschild Haggadah, the miniatures in Ehad Mi Yode’a and Had Gadya, as well as other scenes throughout the work, demonstrate that earlier models were not copied slavishly. Instead, original compositions and images based on previous sources were combined to create a masterpiece of nineteenth-century book art.

From: A Journey through Jewish Worlds. Highlights from the Braginsky collection of Hebrew manuscripts and printed books, hrsg. E. M. Cohen, S. L. Mintz, E. G. L. Schrijver, Amsterdam, 2009, p. 148.

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Schöne Seiten. Jüdische Schriftkultur aus der Braginsky Collection, Hrsg. von Emile Schrijver und Falk Wiesemann, Zürich 2011, S. 80-85.

A Journey through Jewish Worlds. Highlights from the Braginsky collection of Hebrew manuscripts and printed books, hrsg. E. M. Cohen, S. L. Mintz, E. G. L. Schrijver, Amsterdam, 2009, p. 148-153.

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