A miniature prayer compendium for a woman: Seder Birkat Hamazon … (Grace after Meals…) [Mannheim: Simcha Pihem Segal], 1730

22 folios (3 1/8 x 2 in.; 80 x 52 mm). collation: 1-2², 3-6⁴, 7². Written in brown ink on parchment; illustrations in ink and gouache; main titles, headings and text in square Hebrew script with nikud, Yiddish instructions in Ashkenazic semicursive "wayber-taytsh" script, Hebrew instructions in "Rashi" script. Illustrated title page, six text illustrations, and two decorated initial word panels; later mispagination in pencil; owner's inscription and additional texts on paper flyleaves. Finger soiling and smudging; minor ink flaking. 

Iris Fishof, Jüdische Buchmalerei in Hamburg und Altona, Hamburg, 1999 pp. 183-228 and 342-354;; Ursula Schubert, Jüdische Buchkunst, vol. 2, Graz, 1992.

During the eighteenth century, miniature volumes such as this one, containing a variety of Hebrew prayers and blessings, were frequently commissioned by grooms and presented to their brides on the occasion of their marriage. 

Although unsigned, the present volume has been decisively attributed by scholars as the work of the scribe-artist Simcha Pihem Segal of Mannheim, who was active in the 1730s and 40s. The 1730 date inscribed on the title page of the present lot makes this the earliest known manuscript to have been executed by him. Thirteen of Simcha's manuscripts remain extant, among them three other copies of Seder Birkat ha-Mazon (all three were written for women) as well as a variety of other manuscripts including a Haggadah and two Seder Selihot (books of penitential prayers).  The majority of Simcha’s books were copied and illustrated in the town of Mannheim; unlike many of the other scribe-artists of this period, Simcha apparently did not travel from one town to the next in search of commissions.  During the first half of the eighteenth century, approximately 210 families were permitted to live in Mannheim and the city was home to several distinguished and extremely wealthy Court Jews including Emmanuel Oppenheimer, Michael May and Elias Hayyum.  It would seem as though Simcha received enough work in his hometown to allow him the luxury of staying in one place.  Manuscripts by the celebrated scribe Simcha Pihem Segal rarely come up for sale.  Similar manuscripts by Simcha can be found in the collections of the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the British Library, the Israel Museum and the Jewish Museum, New York.

The present volume comprises the text for Birkat ha-Mazon (Grace after Meals) as well as Birkot ha-Nehenin (occasional blessings), and Kriyat Shma al ha-Mita (Recitation of Shma before Retiring). In addition to the decorated title page whose text is set within an architectural framework, the six text illustrations include: two miniatures accompanying the additional texts recited on Hanukkah and Purim; the first, a stylized menorah (f. 3v); and the second, the hanging of Haman and his sons (f. 4v); a Jerusalem cityscape (f. 7r); A woman sits on the edge of her bed, holding a prayerbook and reciting the Shma' prayer, before retiring (f. 13v); depiction of the Angel invoked by the Patriarch Jacob in Genesis 48:16 (f. 17r); King David, playing the harp (f.19r). There are also two illustrated initial word panels: f.2v, the word Barukh enframed in red tendrils atop a silver scallop shell, with lions rampant; and f.10v with angels flanking a crowned and winged cartouche, also containing the initial word, Barukh.