MINHOGIM (YIDDISH CUSTUMAL), SIMEON HA-LEVI GÜNZBURG, FRANKFURT AM MAIN: SAMSON HANAU OF HOMBURG, 1733
Auction Closed
November 20, 08:47 PM GMT
Estimate
3,000 - 5,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
MINHOGIM (YIDDISH CUSTUMAL), SIMEON HA-LEVI GÜNZBURG, FRANKFURT AM MAIN: SAMSON HANAU OF HOMBURG, 1733
64 folios (6 7/8 x 3 7/8 in.; 174 x 97 mm) (collation: i-xiii8) on paper; modern foliation in pencil in Arabic numerals in upper-outer corner of recto. Decorative ornaments and devices on ff. [1r], 64v; twenty-two woodcut vignettes illustrating scenes from Jewish ritual life and practice (some of them repeats) on ff. 2r, 6v, 7v, 12r-13v, 14r, 17r, 25v, 35r, 39v, 42v-43r, 47v, 48v-49r, 52v, 53v, 56v, 59v, 60v, 61v, 62v, some signed “H.”; extra loose copy of f. 48 (frayed around edges). Slight scattered staining, browning, and dogearing; dampstaining; tightly bound, at times obscuring some text near gutter; pages closely cropped and somewhat frayed, occasionally with slight loss of text; short tears in upper edges of ff. 6-7; small holes in outer edges of ff. 22, 60-63 and in lower edges of ff. 57-59. Later three-quarters leather over cloth, slightly worn around the edges; title, place, and date lettered in gilt on spine; modern paper flyleaves and pastedowns.
Samson Hanau, likely the son of the famous, controversial Hebrew grammarian Solomon Zalman Hanau (1687-1746), printed Hebrew and Yiddish titles in Homburg vor der Höhe, in partnership with Jean du Vernois, from 1724. Sometime after 1730, he relocated to nearby Frankfurt am Main, the center of Yiddish printing in Germany up to 1770, and there published the present Minhogim. The woodcuts used here depict many of the same Jewish rituals featured in the Amsterdam editions (albeit in modified form; see lots 78, 81, 88, 91), as well as a few scenes not found therein, including illustrations of the kapparot ceremony performed on the eve of Yom Kippur and of the reading of the Esther scroll on Purim. Additionally, the figures’ costumes have in some cases been updated to reflect current modes, such as the viereckiger Schleier (square veil) and ruffles typically worn by contemporary German Jewish women. Coincidentally, this copy of the Minhogim comes from the collection of Alfred Rubens, author of the well-known History of Jewish Costume. Few other exemplars of this title have survived; known copies (not all complete) are held by the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana (Amsterdam), Zentralbibliothek Zürich, Kongelige Bibliotek (Copenhagen), and The Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary (New York).
Provenance
Alfred Rubens (bookplate on pastedown of upper board)
Moses […] ben Aaron (f. [1r])
Aaron ben Benjamin Joseph (f. [1r])
Literature
Jean Baumgarten, “The Printing of Yiddish Books in Frankfurt-on-the-Main (17th and 18th Centuries),” Bulletin du Centre de recherche français à Jérusalem 20 (2009), available at: http://journals.openedition.org/bcrfj/6225.
Morris Epstein, “Simon Levi Ginzburg’s Illustrated Custumal (Minhagim-Book) of Venice, 1593, and Its Travels,” Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies 5 (1969), vol. 4,4: 197-218, at p. 209.
Aron Freimann, “Die hebräischen Druckereien in Homburg v. d. H. und Rödelheim in den Jahren 1711-57,” Zeitschrift für hebræische Bibliographie 21 (1918): 14-18, at pp. 15-16.
Konstanze Grutschnig-Kieser, “Homburg vor der Höhe – ein Druckort für hebräische Schriften,” in Peter Lingens (ed.), Aspekte jüdischen Lebens in Bad Homburg
(Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag; Bad Homburg: Der Magistrat der Stadt Bad Homburg, 2016), 8-13, at pp. 8-9.
Alfred Rubens, A History of Jewish Costume (London: Vallentine, Mitchell, 1967), 162.
Chone Shmeruk, “Ha-iyyurim min ha-minhagim be-yidish, venetsyah [5]353/1593, be-hadpasot hozerot bi-defusei prag be-me’ah ha-17,” Studies in Bibliography and Booklore 15 (1984): 31-52, at p. 34 (no. 32).
Chava Turniansky, “Yiddish Literature in Frankfurt am Main,” in Karl E. Grözinger (ed.), Jüdische Kultur in Frankfurt am Main von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1997), 273-285, at p. 274.
Vinograd, Frankfurt am Main 483