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Details
AN UNRECORDED ILLUSTRATED HEBREW PRAYERBOOK
Seder Tikkunei Shabbat (mystical prayerbook for the Shabbat by Isaac ben Solomon Luria [1534-1572]). Vienna, [copied and illustrated by Aaron Wolf ben Benjamin Zeev Schreiber Herlingen of Gewitsch], 1738.
CONTENTS
Fol. 1r: Title: "Order of the Tikkunei Shabbat, by the Divine ... Isaac Luria of blessed memory. Manufactured here, in the Royal city of Vienna in the year 1738."
Fol. 1v: Blank
Fol. 2r-47r: Text
Fol. 47v-48v: Blank
CODICOLOGY
102 x 62 mm (text 74 x 43 mm). Collation: 1-114 12-132. 48 leaves, no folitation. Brown ink manuscript on vellum, usually 21 lines in one text column per page, but more complicated layouts with (partial) double columns do occur, and may also cause varying numbers of lines per page. Running titles on all rectos and versos. No catchwords or signatures. Square, semi-cursive and Yiddish 'Amsterdam letters.' (Only slightly thumbed, a few minor stains, generally in excellent condition.) For a justification of the attribution, see below, 'The artist and his work.' The main prayers with full vocalization, usually omitting those signs that have no influence on the Ashkenazic pronunciation.
BINDING
Contemporary Viennese[?] red-dyed vellum, covers elaborately tooled in gilt with a border of semi-circles enclosing a panel of a thin fillet with inner corners and central lozenge of pointillé volutes, acorns and leaves (gilt slightly oxidized, upper hinge cracked); red morocco slipcase.
DECORATION
The manuscript contains the following monochromatic decorations and illustrations:
Fol. 1r: titlepage, with five Biblical scenes, topped by a baroque shield with the name of the original owner, executed in pen-and-ink
Fol. 4v: opening word 'lekhu,' each letter in its own decorated panel with floral, zoomorphic and angelic designs, executed in black ink
Fol. 6v: opening work 'lekhah,' in a decorated panel with floral designs, executed in black ink
Fol. 9r: opening word 'shalom,' each letter in its own decorated panel with floral and zoomorphic designs, executed in black ink
Fol. 11v: opening word 'shir,' each letter in its own decorated panel with floral designs and depictions of cities, executed in black ink
Fol. 18v: elaborate depiction of the Shabbat meal, with text 'yom ha-shishi', executed in pen-and-ink
Fol. 19v: opening work 'kol', in a decorated panel with floral and zoomorphic designs, executed in black ink
Fol. 29r: opening work 'barukh,' in a decorated panel with floral designs, executed in black ink
PROVENANCE:
The scribe wrote the name of the first owner in a baroque shield appearing on the title page: "Belongs to the young and learned Lipman son of the honorable Barukh Jaffe." Lipman ben Baruch Jaffe was certainly a member of the well-known Central European Jaffe family that traces its origin back to Mordecai ben Abraham Jaffe (1535-1612), author of the Levush. Lipman ben Baruch Jaffe has not been identified from the standard Jewish encyclopedias, the histories of the Jews in Central Europe or the literature on Jewish cemeteries in Vienna and its surroundings. -- A later inscription (19th century?) on the title page: "I bought this from Lieben ben Lipman of F,rth." -- Gordon A. Block, Jr. (sold at Parke-Bernet, 29 January 1974, lot 99) -- purchased at the sale through Seven Gables Bookshop, New York.
THE ARTIST AND HIS WORK:
The identification of the scribe is based on careful comparison of the technical features in this manuscript and more than thirty signed manuscripts by Aaron Wolf ben Benjamin Zeev (Schreiber) Herlingen of Gewitsch, as recorded in Emile G.L. Schrijver's Repertory of decorated Hebrew manuscripts of the eighteenth century (in progress).
BIOGRAPHY:
Aaron Schreiber Herlingen was certainly the most prolific Hebrew scribe in Vienna. He was born around the turn of the century into a well-to-do Jewish family in Gewitsch, Moravia. He must have left Gewitsch sometime in his youth, as his manuscripts were produced in Pressburg and Vienna. In Pressburg his name was recorded in the 1736 census of Jews living in that city as "Aaron Schreiber Moravus Gebitsensis. Officialis in Bibliotheca Caesarea Viennensi: 1 uxor, 1 famulus, 1 ancilla" or, "The Moravian Aaron of Gewitsch, official in the Imperial Library in Vienna: one wife, one assistant, one handmaid." The fact that he shared his house with one Israel Herlingen, "viennensis cantor iudaicus" ('a Viennese Jewish cantor,') may indicate that the house was family property. On many of his title pages Aaron Schreiber Herlingen mentioned explicitly his connection with the Imperial and Royal Library in Vienna. That he held such a position is evidenced by an anonymous 1762 letter to Empress Maria Theresia in which the advice was given to allow the "verwittibten Bibliothecsschreiberin Veronica Aaronin" ("the library scribe Aaron's widow Veronica") to open up a kosher restaurant for foreign travelers. Aaron Schreiber Herlingen must have died sometime in the preceding decade.
STYLE:
The Hungarian scholar Ernest Naminyi, in one of the very few serious articles on the eighteenth-century school of Hebrew manuscript artists, described the work of Aaron Schreiber Herlingen as follows: "Aron Wolf was an excellent penman; all of his works have a definite graphic character. His pen-drawings (sometimes set off by coloring) are very neatly executed, with perfect craftsmanship and impeccable taste, but very often dryly academic. His talents were eminently graphic and he only painted to enhance his drawings."
This description does not do full justice to the quality of the painted manuscripts as it was apparently based on just a small part of Herlingen's professional production, but there is something to it. Some of Herlingen's most impressive work is indeed highly calligraphic, or micro-graphic, to be more precise. Examples of this are the five extant illustrated single-sheet manuscripts (of sizes generally smaller than modern A4-letter), containing the texts of the five Megillot in five different Semitic and European languages and types of script.
METHOD:
Ernest Naminy assumed, and most later researchers concurred, that on the basis of the 1736 Pressburg census, where a famulus is mentioned, Aaron Schreiber Herlingen probably worked with an assistant. He adds to this that "the great number of works would justify the need for some help, while the unevenness of their quality would confirm it." However, there is reason to be more careful. First, it is not improbable that a wealthy person who could afford to have a handmaid would also have some sort of household assistant. Perhaps Aaron's famulus was not involved in the professional work at all. Second, the supposed "unevenness" of the quality of Herlingen's work is likely the result of his internal development as an artist - in the course of his career he naturally became an ever more skilled artist - and not of his working together with an assistant. Third, "the great number of works," i.e. several dozens, should be judged in light of his at least 28 years of activity as a scribe (from 1724 until 1752). On the basis of the surviving manuscripts, his output would be two or occasionally three manuscripts per year, which is respectable of course, but not astounding.
TECHNIQUE:
Like most of his contemporaries, Aaron Schreiber Herlingen wrote his Hebrew texts between two horizontal ruled lines applied by hard-point, what may be termed 'twinned' lines. As eighteenth-century decorated manuscripts were usually deliberate attempts to imitate printed books, where line justification is achieved through the use of extra white space, scribes were constantly confronted with the practical problem of creating an even left-hand margin. Unlike their medieval predecessors, who would often write out as many letters of the next word as possible on the line only to repeat the whole word on the next line, Hebrew scribes of the eighteenth century would write only the first letter of the next word against the left-hand margin, if necessary with an open space before it. Dilation of practically all letters of the alphabet was equally common, as was the use of so-called graphic fillers--signs that were used to fill the open space at the end of a line. Aaron Schreiber Herlingen most frequently used as fillers a small dot (somewhat like an unfinished yod) and a small vertical line, both written between the two ruled lines, or a small horizontal line written against the upper of the two ruled lines. A waving dash and a capital S-like sign were not uncommon either. When using these signs the scribe did not seem to be bothered with an open space before the signs either. Another feature of several, not all, of Aaron Schreiber Herlingen's manuscripts is the use of inverted or mirrored single letters, or a combination of both, as graphic fillers. This was especially common with the letter mem. An open space at the end of a line could be filled with a combination of these graphic signs or even with different, otherwise uncommon, signs. Furthermore, he often left an open space before the colon indicating the end of a verse.
In addition to simply compressing the last word or words, Aaron Schreiber Herlingen made frequent use of abbreviations to prevent the left-hand marginal line from being exceeded. A special feature of most of his manuscripts, only rarely seen with other eighteenth-century Hebrew scribes, is that he often writes the last letters of the last word on the line, the whole last word or even the last two or three words in smaller script against the upper ruled line.
Aaron Schreiber Herlingen had different ways to write the Divine Name. His most common sign for the tetragram can be described best as a relatively simple shape, similar to a capital letter L, with two yods to the right of the ascender. Another, less common sign for the tetragram is more elaborate in that the ascender makes an upward curve from the right-hand side of the base and is topped with a small flag-like ornament, again with two yods to the right of the ascender. Occasionally, Herlingen wrote just the two yods, especially in biblical texts. The ligature of alef and lamed, which he used frequently, is also very simple; a slightly curved upward stroke combined with the right-hand part of the alef.
IDENTIFICATION:
A comparison of the aforementioned technical features of the manuscripts of Aaron Schreiber Herlingen and this unsigned Tikkunei Shabbat manuscript leaves little doubt as to the identity of its scribe and artist. Although it was unusual for Herlingen to not sign a manuscript, the present work was indeed copied by this excellent penman. Herlingen ruled the Tikkunei Shabbat according to his standard technique, i.e. hard-point ruling on rectos and versos. Most convincing are Herlingen's typical justification techniques at the end of the line, especially the use of smaller script toward the end of the line. Other technical characteristics of the book, such as the nature of the parchment; the brown ink; the quires of 2 bifolia; the general appearance and morphology of the square, semi-cursive and Yiddish scripts used; the vocalization, characterized by the fact that only those letters that have a different pronunciation according to the Ashkenazic tradition get a dagesh; and especially the original gilt-tooled red-dyed parchment binding, which was very common in Bohemia at the time, all corroborate the conclusion that Aaron Schreiber Herlingen was the scribe of this attractive Tikkunei Shabbat.
Christie's is grateful to Dr. Emile G.L. Schrijver, director of the Menasseh ben Israel Institute for Jewish Social and Cultural Studies, who studied this manuscript and shared with us data from his forthcoming "Repertory of decorated Hebrew manuscripts of the eighteenth century."
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
- E.M. Naminyi, "La miniature juive au XVIIe et au XVIIIe siicle," Revue des itudes juives 116 (1957), p. 27-71.
- E.M. Naminyi, "The Illumination of Hebrew Manuscripts after the Invention of Printing," in C. Roth, ed., Jewish Art. An Illustrated History (2nd ed., London, 1971), p. 149-162.
- C. Roth, "Gewitsch, Aaron Wolf," in Encylcopaedia Judaica 7 (Jerusalem, 1972), clmns. 533-534.
- E. Roth, "Ha-tsayyar ha-amami Aharon Shrayber Herlingen," Yeda-'Am. Journal of the Israel Folklore Society 5 (1958), p. 73-79.
- E.G.L. Schrijver, "The manuscript," in J. Schonfield, ed., Perek Shirah. An eighteenth-century illuminated Hebrew Book of Praise. Companion volume to the facsimile edition (London, 1996), p. 15-38.
Seder Tikkunei Shabbat (mystical prayerbook for the Shabbat by Isaac ben Solomon Luria [1534-1572]). Vienna, [copied and illustrated by Aaron Wolf ben Benjamin Zeev Schreiber Herlingen of Gewitsch], 1738.
CONTENTS
Fol. 1r: Title: "Order of the Tikkunei Shabbat, by the Divine ... Isaac Luria of blessed memory. Manufactured here, in the Royal city of Vienna in the year 1738."
Fol. 1v: Blank
Fol. 2r-47r: Text
Fol. 47v-48v: Blank
CODICOLOGY
102 x 62 mm (text 74 x 43 mm). Collation: 1-114 12-132. 48 leaves, no folitation. Brown ink manuscript on vellum, usually 21 lines in one text column per page, but more complicated layouts with (partial) double columns do occur, and may also cause varying numbers of lines per page. Running titles on all rectos and versos. No catchwords or signatures. Square, semi-cursive and Yiddish 'Amsterdam letters.' (Only slightly thumbed, a few minor stains, generally in excellent condition.) For a justification of the attribution, see below, 'The artist and his work.' The main prayers with full vocalization, usually omitting those signs that have no influence on the Ashkenazic pronunciation.
BINDING
Contemporary Viennese[?] red-dyed vellum, covers elaborately tooled in gilt with a border of semi-circles enclosing a panel of a thin fillet with inner corners and central lozenge of pointillé volutes, acorns and leaves (gilt slightly oxidized, upper hinge cracked); red morocco slipcase.
DECORATION
The manuscript contains the following monochromatic decorations and illustrations:
Fol. 1r: titlepage, with five Biblical scenes, topped by a baroque shield with the name of the original owner, executed in pen-and-ink
Fol. 4v: opening word 'lekhu,' each letter in its own decorated panel with floral, zoomorphic and angelic designs, executed in black ink
Fol. 6v: opening work 'lekhah,' in a decorated panel with floral designs, executed in black ink
Fol. 9r: opening word 'shalom,' each letter in its own decorated panel with floral and zoomorphic designs, executed in black ink
Fol. 11v: opening word 'shir,' each letter in its own decorated panel with floral designs and depictions of cities, executed in black ink
Fol. 18v: elaborate depiction of the Shabbat meal, with text 'yom ha-shishi', executed in pen-and-ink
Fol. 19v: opening work 'kol', in a decorated panel with floral and zoomorphic designs, executed in black ink
Fol. 29r: opening work 'barukh,' in a decorated panel with floral designs, executed in black ink
PROVENANCE:
The scribe wrote the name of the first owner in a baroque shield appearing on the title page: "Belongs to the young and learned Lipman son of the honorable Barukh Jaffe." Lipman ben Baruch Jaffe was certainly a member of the well-known Central European Jaffe family that traces its origin back to Mordecai ben Abraham Jaffe (1535-1612), author of the Levush. Lipman ben Baruch Jaffe has not been identified from the standard Jewish encyclopedias, the histories of the Jews in Central Europe or the literature on Jewish cemeteries in Vienna and its surroundings. -- A later inscription (19th century?) on the title page: "I bought this from Lieben ben Lipman of F,rth." -- Gordon A. Block, Jr. (sold at Parke-Bernet, 29 January 1974, lot 99) -- purchased at the sale through Seven Gables Bookshop, New York.
THE ARTIST AND HIS WORK:
The identification of the scribe is based on careful comparison of the technical features in this manuscript and more than thirty signed manuscripts by Aaron Wolf ben Benjamin Zeev (Schreiber) Herlingen of Gewitsch, as recorded in Emile G.L. Schrijver's Repertory of decorated Hebrew manuscripts of the eighteenth century (in progress).
BIOGRAPHY:
Aaron Schreiber Herlingen was certainly the most prolific Hebrew scribe in Vienna. He was born around the turn of the century into a well-to-do Jewish family in Gewitsch, Moravia. He must have left Gewitsch sometime in his youth, as his manuscripts were produced in Pressburg and Vienna. In Pressburg his name was recorded in the 1736 census of Jews living in that city as "Aaron Schreiber Moravus Gebitsensis. Officialis in Bibliotheca Caesarea Viennensi: 1 uxor, 1 famulus, 1 ancilla" or, "The Moravian Aaron of Gewitsch, official in the Imperial Library in Vienna: one wife, one assistant, one handmaid." The fact that he shared his house with one Israel Herlingen, "viennensis cantor iudaicus" ('a Viennese Jewish cantor,') may indicate that the house was family property. On many of his title pages Aaron Schreiber Herlingen mentioned explicitly his connection with the Imperial and Royal Library in Vienna. That he held such a position is evidenced by an anonymous 1762 letter to Empress Maria Theresia in which the advice was given to allow the "verwittibten Bibliothecsschreiberin Veronica Aaronin" ("the library scribe Aaron's widow Veronica") to open up a kosher restaurant for foreign travelers. Aaron Schreiber Herlingen must have died sometime in the preceding decade.
STYLE:
The Hungarian scholar Ernest Naminyi, in one of the very few serious articles on the eighteenth-century school of Hebrew manuscript artists, described the work of Aaron Schreiber Herlingen as follows: "Aron Wolf was an excellent penman; all of his works have a definite graphic character. His pen-drawings (sometimes set off by coloring) are very neatly executed, with perfect craftsmanship and impeccable taste, but very often dryly academic. His talents were eminently graphic and he only painted to enhance his drawings."
This description does not do full justice to the quality of the painted manuscripts as it was apparently based on just a small part of Herlingen's professional production, but there is something to it. Some of Herlingen's most impressive work is indeed highly calligraphic, or micro-graphic, to be more precise. Examples of this are the five extant illustrated single-sheet manuscripts (of sizes generally smaller than modern A4-letter), containing the texts of the five Megillot in five different Semitic and European languages and types of script.
METHOD:
Ernest Naminy assumed, and most later researchers concurred, that on the basis of the 1736 Pressburg census, where a famulus is mentioned, Aaron Schreiber Herlingen probably worked with an assistant. He adds to this that "the great number of works would justify the need for some help, while the unevenness of their quality would confirm it." However, there is reason to be more careful. First, it is not improbable that a wealthy person who could afford to have a handmaid would also have some sort of household assistant. Perhaps Aaron's famulus was not involved in the professional work at all. Second, the supposed "unevenness" of the quality of Herlingen's work is likely the result of his internal development as an artist - in the course of his career he naturally became an ever more skilled artist - and not of his working together with an assistant. Third, "the great number of works," i.e. several dozens, should be judged in light of his at least 28 years of activity as a scribe (from 1724 until 1752). On the basis of the surviving manuscripts, his output would be two or occasionally three manuscripts per year, which is respectable of course, but not astounding.
TECHNIQUE:
Like most of his contemporaries, Aaron Schreiber Herlingen wrote his Hebrew texts between two horizontal ruled lines applied by hard-point, what may be termed 'twinned' lines. As eighteenth-century decorated manuscripts were usually deliberate attempts to imitate printed books, where line justification is achieved through the use of extra white space, scribes were constantly confronted with the practical problem of creating an even left-hand margin. Unlike their medieval predecessors, who would often write out as many letters of the next word as possible on the line only to repeat the whole word on the next line, Hebrew scribes of the eighteenth century would write only the first letter of the next word against the left-hand margin, if necessary with an open space before it. Dilation of practically all letters of the alphabet was equally common, as was the use of so-called graphic fillers--signs that were used to fill the open space at the end of a line. Aaron Schreiber Herlingen most frequently used as fillers a small dot (somewhat like an unfinished yod) and a small vertical line, both written between the two ruled lines, or a small horizontal line written against the upper of the two ruled lines. A waving dash and a capital S-like sign were not uncommon either. When using these signs the scribe did not seem to be bothered with an open space before the signs either. Another feature of several, not all, of Aaron Schreiber Herlingen's manuscripts is the use of inverted or mirrored single letters, or a combination of both, as graphic fillers. This was especially common with the letter mem. An open space at the end of a line could be filled with a combination of these graphic signs or even with different, otherwise uncommon, signs. Furthermore, he often left an open space before the colon indicating the end of a verse.
In addition to simply compressing the last word or words, Aaron Schreiber Herlingen made frequent use of abbreviations to prevent the left-hand marginal line from being exceeded. A special feature of most of his manuscripts, only rarely seen with other eighteenth-century Hebrew scribes, is that he often writes the last letters of the last word on the line, the whole last word or even the last two or three words in smaller script against the upper ruled line.
Aaron Schreiber Herlingen had different ways to write the Divine Name. His most common sign for the tetragram can be described best as a relatively simple shape, similar to a capital letter L, with two yods to the right of the ascender. Another, less common sign for the tetragram is more elaborate in that the ascender makes an upward curve from the right-hand side of the base and is topped with a small flag-like ornament, again with two yods to the right of the ascender. Occasionally, Herlingen wrote just the two yods, especially in biblical texts. The ligature of alef and lamed, which he used frequently, is also very simple; a slightly curved upward stroke combined with the right-hand part of the alef.
IDENTIFICATION:
A comparison of the aforementioned technical features of the manuscripts of Aaron Schreiber Herlingen and this unsigned Tikkunei Shabbat manuscript leaves little doubt as to the identity of its scribe and artist. Although it was unusual for Herlingen to not sign a manuscript, the present work was indeed copied by this excellent penman. Herlingen ruled the Tikkunei Shabbat according to his standard technique, i.e. hard-point ruling on rectos and versos. Most convincing are Herlingen's typical justification techniques at the end of the line, especially the use of smaller script toward the end of the line. Other technical characteristics of the book, such as the nature of the parchment; the brown ink; the quires of 2 bifolia; the general appearance and morphology of the square, semi-cursive and Yiddish scripts used; the vocalization, characterized by the fact that only those letters that have a different pronunciation according to the Ashkenazic tradition get a dagesh; and especially the original gilt-tooled red-dyed parchment binding, which was very common in Bohemia at the time, all corroborate the conclusion that Aaron Schreiber Herlingen was the scribe of this attractive Tikkunei Shabbat.
Christie's is grateful to Dr. Emile G.L. Schrijver, director of the Menasseh ben Israel Institute for Jewish Social and Cultural Studies, who studied this manuscript and shared with us data from his forthcoming "Repertory of decorated Hebrew manuscripts of the eighteenth century."
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
- E.M. Naminyi, "La miniature juive au XVIIe et au XVIIIe siicle," Revue des itudes juives 116 (1957), p. 27-71.
- E.M. Naminyi, "The Illumination of Hebrew Manuscripts after the Invention of Printing," in C. Roth, ed., Jewish Art. An Illustrated History (2nd ed., London, 1971), p. 149-162.
- C. Roth, "Gewitsch, Aaron Wolf," in Encylcopaedia Judaica 7 (Jerusalem, 1972), clmns. 533-534.
- E. Roth, "Ha-tsayyar ha-amami Aharon Shrayber Herlingen," Yeda-'Am. Journal of the Israel Folklore Society 5 (1958), p. 73-79.
- E.G.L. Schrijver, "The manuscript," in J. Schonfield, ed., Perek Shirah. An eighteenth-century illuminated Hebrew Book of Praise. Companion volume to the facsimile edition (London, 1996), p. 15-38.