Two Exceedingly Rare, Hand-Colored, Historic Broadsheets [Germany]: 1671

Eduard Fuchs, Die Juden in der Karikatur, p. 29; Isaiah Shachar, The Judensau: A Medieval Anti-Jewish Motif and its History, p. 60; fn 307; pl. 54.

1)HANGING OF AMSCHEL; 2) TOMBSTONE OF AMSCHEL

These two rare 17^th century broadsheets are forerunners of a genre of publications featuring anti-Jewish stereotypes which would proliferate across most of Europe during the following centuries.  Both ridicule the purported Jewish criminal Amschel zum Schuck (Yiddish for Amshel of the marketplace). Historians, however, have found no trace of the events or people mentioned in these broadsheets and suggest that Amschel was a purely fictional concoction for the sole purpose of inciting anti-Jewish sentiment.  Although the broadsheets proclaim Amsterdam as the place of publication, it is more likely that they were printed in Germany, especially as the Gothic typeface was not widely used in Amsterdam at this time.

Sotheby's would like to thank Prof. Falk Wiesemann, Heinrich-Heine-University, Düsseldorf, Germany for providing information which aided in the cataloging of this lot.