- 243A
A highly important Bezalel ceramic plaque and brass frame
bidding is closed
Description
the plaque depicting Professor Otto Warburg in profile and appropriately titled in English and signed by Boris Schatz, mounted in a repousse frame decorated with twisted pillars and surmounted by a framed vignette of the biblical artisan, Bezalel Ben Uri and the tabernacle, inscribed in Hebrew 'from Bezalel to our President, Professor O. Warburg', with further Hebrew presentation inscription below This lot contains 1 item(s).
Catalogue Note
This historical plaque was presented to Professor Warburg on his 70th birthday from the entire Bezalel staff. In addition to congratulating him on his birthday, the inscription includes a request to re-open the Bezalel School: Bn'ai Bezalel, its director, teachers, staff, students, artists, workers, present you, our president, for your 70th birthday, with this present wishing you a long good life and the ability to revive Bezalel, to brind joy to your heart and benefit to the state of Israel and the people of Israel'.
Born in 1859 to the wealthy, assimilated Warburg family of Hamburg, Otto Warburg, received a secular education and became a botanist whose expeditions to Asia led to the discovery of hundreds of species of plants. Made a professor at the University of Berlin in 1892, through his father in law, Gustav Cohen, he became as well an ardent Zionist. He became a supporter and confidant of Theodor Herzl's, and following his first visit to the land of Israel, his advisor on settlement, providing material for Herzl's influential book, Altneuland. Warburg's principal contribution to Zionism was his role in this area within the Zionist Organization. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Palestine Office under the aegis of Ruppin and of the Palestine Development Company. Following the death of Herzl in 1904, he became a member of the Zionist Executive and in 1911, the director of the World Zionist Organization. In addition, he served in Berlin as the head of the Executive Board of Bezalel from the time of the school's inception and it was then that its founder, Boris Schatz, created the portrait plaque offered here. The relationship between the Board and the institution became acrimonious due to financial imperatives and was finally discontinued in 1915. At the time of Schatz's many attempts to revive and maintain funding for the school, Warburg was appointed Chairman of a public company bearing the school's name. The plaque made by Schatz in 1905 was placed in a copper repousse frame designed by Ze'ev Raban and created in 1929 by the mostly male workers of the metalworks department of Bezalel to celebrate Warburg's 70th birthday and encourage his continued support of Bezalel. Nonetheless, the 'old Bezalel' closed in 1929 and a new Bezalel institution under different management, came into being only in 1935, after Schatz' death.
Following the Great War, during which he used his influence with the German Foreign Ministry to restrain Ottoman mistreatment of the Jewish population of Palestine, Warburg devoted himself to scientific work there. He became the head of the department of Botany of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1925. In the years following, he divided his time between Berlin and Palestine and finally died in Berlin in 1938, under Nazi rule.
Born in 1859 to the wealthy, assimilated Warburg family of Hamburg, Otto Warburg, received a secular education and became a botanist whose expeditions to Asia led to the discovery of hundreds of species of plants. Made a professor at the University of Berlin in 1892, through his father in law, Gustav Cohen, he became as well an ardent Zionist. He became a supporter and confidant of Theodor Herzl's, and following his first visit to the land of Israel, his advisor on settlement, providing material for Herzl's influential book, Altneuland. Warburg's principal contribution to Zionism was his role in this area within the Zionist Organization. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Palestine Office under the aegis of Ruppin and of the Palestine Development Company. Following the death of Herzl in 1904, he became a member of the Zionist Executive and in 1911, the director of the World Zionist Organization. In addition, he served in Berlin as the head of the Executive Board of Bezalel from the time of the school's inception and it was then that its founder, Boris Schatz, created the portrait plaque offered here. The relationship between the Board and the institution became acrimonious due to financial imperatives and was finally discontinued in 1915. At the time of Schatz's many attempts to revive and maintain funding for the school, Warburg was appointed Chairman of a public company bearing the school's name. The plaque made by Schatz in 1905 was placed in a copper repousse frame designed by Ze'ev Raban and created in 1929 by the mostly male workers of the metalworks department of Bezalel to celebrate Warburg's 70th birthday and encourage his continued support of Bezalel. Nonetheless, the 'old Bezalel' closed in 1929 and a new Bezalel institution under different management, came into being only in 1935, after Schatz' death.
Following the Great War, during which he used his influence with the German Foreign Ministry to restrain Ottoman mistreatment of the Jewish population of Palestine, Warburg devoted himself to scientific work there. He became the head of the department of Botany of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1925. In the years following, he divided his time between Berlin and Palestine and finally died in Berlin in 1938, under Nazi rule.