Meet the Specialists

By Sharon Liberman Mintz
International Senior Specialist, Judaica

Rarely does one encounter a manuscript that embodies so many worlds—faith and art, persecution and survival—yet the splendid Rothschild Vienna Mahzor is such a treasure. Completed in 1415 by the hand of a Jewish scribe, Moses, son of Menachem, this monumental High Holiday prayer book reveals both the refinement of medieval book arts and the fragility of Jewish life in Central Europe.

We can almost imagine Moses at his desk, meticulously copying the liturgy of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur for a wealthy patron who desired a volume both functional and luxurious. Its size, opulence and artistry indicate that the Mahzor was intended for communal rather than private use. The decorations astonish—folios brimming with animals and fantastical creatures set in Gothic archways, curling scrollwork and burnished gold initial-word panels. The parchment was carefully prepared to receive vivid mineral and organic pigments—deep lapis blues, verdant copper greens, and cinnabar reds—whose brilliance is undimmed after six centuries.

The decoration reveals the influence of the Lake Constance school of illumination, a vibrant artistic tradition that flourished along the borders of southern Germany, Switzerland and Austria in the 14th century, distinguished by its architectonic panels, elaborate foliate scrolls and a lively cast of hybrids rendered in a distinctive palette.

The Mahzor was created nearly a century later, yet its decoration clearly draws upon the tradition. One theory suggests that Jewish refugees from the Lake Constance area brought their illuminated manuscripts to Vienna after the destruction of local Jewish communities in the Black Death persecutions of 1348-49. Thus, the Rothschild Vienna Mahzor stands as an artistic descendant.

Yet history weighed heavily on this masterpiece. Within a decade of its completion, persecution engulfed Vienna’s Jewish community in 1420-21, decimating Jewish life in the city. The Mahzor traveled on, its margins soon inscribed with notes adapting the prayers to the Polish as well as the Western Ashkenazi liturgical rites—evidence of new readers in new lands. By the 19th century, it surfaced in Nuremberg, where Salomon Mayer Rothschild (1744-1855) purchased it for his son Anselm Salomon (1803-1874) for 151 gold coins. A dedicatory leaf embellished with the family’s coat of arms was added, attesting to their pride of ownership.

The Mahzor’s journey did not end there. Confiscated during the Nazi era, it was placed in the Austrian National Library where it remained for decades until its recent restitution to the Rothschilds. Today, this magnificent codex testifies not only to the endurance of Jewish devotion and artistry but also to survival against the odds.

By Courtney Kremers
Vice Chairman, Head of Private Sales, Americas

Icons live where history and culture meet. Last month, when we opened the doors of the Breuer, our new New York headquarters, an architectural landmark by a Bauhaus titan—meticulously restored by Herzog & de Meuron—it felt both new and familiar. Returning to Madison Avenue, where Sotheby’s first established its U.S. presence in 1964, feels like coming full circle.

To mark the occasion, we’re presenting “Icons: Back to Madison,” a loan exhibition of more than two dozen exceptional artworks and objects borrowed from around the world, spanning centuries, media and some of the most defining moments in art history. Each embodies a milestone in our history—having sparked bidding battles or, in some cases, anchored landmark collections as it passed through our salerooms—and holds an enduring place in the broader cultural imagination.

Few works embody that duality better than Andy Warhol’s “Shot Orange Marilyn.” Its story is legendary. One afternoon at the Factory in 1964, Warhol’s friend Ray Johnson arrived with a woman named Dorothy Podber, who asked if she might “shoot” a stack of freshly completed Marilyn canvases. Warhol agreed, assuming she meant to photograph them. Instead, Podber pulled a revolver from her purse and fired a single bullet through the stack. Half provocation, half vandalism, that moment became part of the work’s DNA.

In the years that followed, “Shot Orange Marilyn” gathered new layers of meaning. It was sold by visionary early pop art collectors Leon Kraushar and Karl Ströher, whose holdings helped introduce the movement to Europe. When it appeared at auction at Sotheby’s New York in 1998, it carried not only Warhol’s legacy but also the momentum of the contemporary market. The result—$17.3 million—was more than four times the artist’s previous record and the second-highest price ever achieved for a contemporary painting at auction at the time. That evening marked a turning point: the moment when contemporary art entered the realm of blue-chip history.

Warhol’s vibrant orange background heightens the intensity of Marilyn’s face. Her features are familiar yet curiously remote, as though she exists somewhere between film still and apparition. That tension between reality and reproduction, glamour and decay, is what makes this work feel timeless. When I look at it, I see New York itself: brilliant, endlessly reproduced and impossible to contain.

It will appear alongside other defining objects from our past, from Willem de Kooning’s “Interchange” to Banksy’s “Girl with Balloon,” which was famously shredded mid-auction in London and became “Girl Without Balloon.” Together, they form a retrospective not of artists alone but of a fabled auction house, a story also captured in the new book “Icons: 100 Extraordinary Objects from Sotheby’s History,” which recounts further pivotal works, moments and the people who shaped them.

For a 281-year-old company, this marks the beginning of a new chapter, continuing our enduring commitment to celebrating art, history and culture for all. I hope visitors to New York for the holidays will come to the Breuer and discover that the best show this season is right here on Madison Avenue. “Icons” is meant for everyone curious to experience the truly extraordinary.—As told to James Haldane