A DECORATED SHIVVITI, [BULGARIA: CA. 1900]

Ink and gouache on paper with gilt decoration (17 1/4 x 14 1/8 in.; 445 x 359 mm). Multicolor central panel featuring the four-letter name of God surrounded by floral motifs with a stylized menorah below, enframed by micrographic interlaced texts and a green and yellow lettered border. Scattered staining and spotting; small tear in upper edge; a few words smudged; some paint flaked. Framed.

This decorative shivviti includes a stylized illustration of the menorah, the seven-branched candelabrum kindled in the Temple in Jerusalem. A distinctive element incorporated into most shivviti plaques, the menorah is here fashioned from the words of psalm 67. The custom of meditating on an image of this psalm so shaped before reciting the morning prayers in order to put the worshiper into the proper frame of mind was encouraged by rabbinic authorities such as David Abudarham as far back as the fourteenth century. There are two further examples of shivvitis that appear to have been created by the same scribe-artist, the first in a private collection in Israel and the second in the collection of The Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the latter dedicated by Nissim Ezekiel Ereza in Vratsa (Bulgaria) in [5]677 (1916-1917). Literature

New York, Jewish Theological Seminary Ms. 9407 (http://garfield.jtsa.edu:8881/R/-?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=161167&silo_library=GEN01)