Sacred Splendor: Judaica from the Arthur and Gitel Marx Collection

Sacred Splendor: Judaica from the Arthur and Gitel Marx Collection

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 128. SEDER BIRKAT HA-MAZON (GRACE AFTER MEALS, PASSOVER HAGGADAH, AND OTHER TEXTS WITH YIDDISH TRANSLATION), FRANKFURT AN DER ODER: [JOHANN DAVID] GRILLO, [CA. 1746-1766].

SEDER BIRKAT HA-MAZON (GRACE AFTER MEALS, PASSOVER HAGGADAH, AND OTHER TEXTS WITH YIDDISH TRANSLATION), FRANKFURT AN DER ODER: [JOHANN DAVID] GRILLO, [CA. 1746-1766]

Auction Closed

November 20, 08:47 PM GMT

Estimate

5,000 - 7,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

SEDER BIRKAT HA-MAZON (GRACE AFTER MEALS, PASSOVER HAGGADAH, AND OTHER TEXTS WITH YIDDISH TRANSLATION), FRANKFURT AN DER ODER: [JOHANN DAVID] GRILLO, [CA. 1746-1766]


40 folios (7 3/8 x 6 1/4 in.; 186 x 158 mm) on paper; modern foliations in pencil in Arabic numerals in lower-outer corner of recto and lower-inner corner of verso. Title within elaborate architectural frame supported by an eagle; twenty-nine woodcut vignettes illustrating scenes from Jewish ritual life and practice (some of them repeats), as well as the narrative of the Haggadah, on ff. 1v, 4r-4v, 16r, 18v-19v, 20v, 22r, 26r, 26v, 28r-29r, 30r-30v, 32v-33v, 35r, 36r, 39r. Slight scattered staining; some thumbing and dogearing; edges somewhat frayed toward front and rear; tiny wormtracks near foot of ff. 5-7; small holes in ff. 6, 8, 12, 39-40, affecting a few words each; slight worming near gutters of ff. 8-40, usually affecting only individual letters and sometimes repaired; small holes near upper edges of ff. 28-35; minor repairs in outer edge of f. 39; ff. 39-40 strengthened along gutter. Modern gilt-tooled tan calf, slightly scuffed; spine in eight compartments with raised bands; title, place, and (incorrect) date lettered in gilt on spine; red edges; modern paper flyleaves and pastedowns.


A rare edition that appears to have escaped the attention of bibliographical scholarship.


Around the end of the sixteenth century, publishers began producing thin pamphlets containing the birkat ha-mazon (grace after meals) and Passover Haggadah provided with a Yiddish translation. With time, these bentsherlekh, the ancestors of the modern-day bentsher, came to incorporate other liturgical texts generally said outside the synagogue, such as kiddush, havdalah, zemirot (songs for the Sabbath table), the nighttime Shema, and blessings recited prior to various ceremonies and lifecycle events. They also tended to feature takeoffs on the famous woodcuts first printed in the Venice, 1593 edition of Simeon ha-Levi Günzburg’s Minhogim (see lots 78, 81, 88, 91, 124), as well as traditional illustrations of scenes from the Haggadah.


The present bentsherl was printed by professor of theology and philology Johann David Grillo (1688/1689-1766), whose name appears on Hebrew books issued in Frankfurt an der Oder from about 1746 until his death, during the reign of Frederick II of Prussia (1740-1786). It is likely that it was published circa 1753, the year in which Grillo produced a slightly longer bentsherl. Chava Turniansky, whose bibliography of this genre includes seventy-three imprints, was apparently unaware of the existence of this edition, a fact that testifies to its rarity.


Literature

Johann Christoph Adelung, Fortsetzung und Ergänzungen zu Christian Gottlieb Jöchers allgemeinen Gelehrten-Lexicon, vol. 2 (Leipzig: Johann Friedrich Gleditschens Handlung, 1787), 1612.


Bernard Brilling, “Gründung und Privilegien der hebräischen Buchdruckerei in Frankfurt a. O,” Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 80,3 (1936): 262-275.


David L. Paisey, Deutsche Buchdrucker, Buchhändler und Verleger[,] 1701-1750 (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1988), 84.


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. 32 n. 4.


Chone Shmeruk, Ha-iyyurim le-sifrei yidish ba-me’ot ha-16-ha-17: ha-tekstim, ha-temunot ve-nim‘aneihem (Jerusalem: Akademon, 1986), 13.


Chava Turniansky, “Ha-‘bentsherl’ ve-ha-zemirot be-yidish,” Alei sefer 10 (1982): 51-92.