Sacred Splendor: Judaica from the Arthur and Gitel Marx Collection
Sacred Splendor: Judaica from the Arthur and Gitel Marx Collection
SEFER SHENEI LUHOT HA-BERIT AND HAKDAMAT SEFER VAVEI HA-AMMUDIM (COMPENDIUM OF HALAKHAH, KABBALAH, AND ETHICS), RABBIS ISAIAH AND SHABBETAI SHEFTEL HA-LEVI HOROWITZ, AMSTERDAM: IMMANUEL BEN JOSEPH ATHIAS, 1697-1698
Auction Closed
November 20, 08:47 PM GMT
Estimate
3,000 - 5,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
SEFER SHENEI LUHOT HA-BERIT AND HAKDAMAT SEFER VAVEI HA-AMMUDIM (COMPENDIUM OF HALAKHAH, KABBALAH, AND ETHICS), RABBIS ISAIAH AND SHABBETAI SHEFTEL HA-LEVI HOROWITZ, AMSTERDAM: IMMANUEL BEN JOSEPH ATHIAS, 1697-1698
2 parts in 1 volume (11 3/4 x 7 3/8 in.; 297 x 185 mm): Part 1 (Sefer shenei luhot ha-berit): 426 folios (foliation: [1-4], 1-422); Part 2 (Hakdamat sefer vavei ha-ammudim): 56 folios (foliation: 1-44, [1-12]) on paper. Part 1: Decorative elements on ff. [2r], 417r, 422v; ornamental headpieces on ff. 1r, 38v, 110v, 264r; schematic representation of author’s name on f. [3v]; diagrams on ff. 102r, 105r, 118r; marginal comment in pen on f. 78v. Slight scattered staining; outer edges lightly browned; corners slightly rounded; minor dogearing; tear in outer edge of f. 25; ff. 90-91 bound out of order; short tears in lower edge of f. 92, outer edges of ff. 120-121, and upper edge of f. 278; small hole affecting a couple letters on f. 195; puncture near gutter on f. 234, affecting several words. Part 2: Title within a border of printer’s ornaments; ornamental headpiece on f. 3v; decorative elements on ff. [1r], 23v, 37v, 44v, as well as on recto of first folio of index and verso of last. Slight scattered staining; outer edges lightly browned; corners slightly rounded; minor dogearing; small portion of upper-outer corner of ninth folio of index lacking. Modern gilt-tooled calf, slightly scuffed; spine in seven compartments with raised bands; title, place, and date lettered in gilt on spine; modern paper flyleaves and pastedowns.
The third edition, with a magnificent engraved title page.
Joseph Athias (ca. 1635-1700), a Lisbon native, published his first Hebrew book in Amsterdam in 1658. An entrepreneur and shrewd businessman, he may have been the first to use stereotype printing plates, allowing him to quickly produce large numbers of English Bibles. He may have also been the first Hebrew publisher to advertise in a newspaper. His son Immanuel (Manuel; ca. 1664-1714) began managing the Hebrew department of the Athias press in 1685, issuing an array of beautiful editions until 1709. In the assessment of two scholars of Hebrew typography in the Northern Netherlands, “There is no other Hebrew printer in Amsterdam who achieved the same fame and reputation” as Joseph Athias.
The present lot is the third edition of Horowitz’s Sefer shenei luhot ha-berit (see lot 79). Unlike the second edition, which appeared in Wilhermsdorf in 1684-1686, this version preserved the foliation and mise-en-page of the editio princeps, though the types and ornaments used were mostly updated. In addition, a detailed table of contents entitled Zeh sefer toledot adam, first printed as a separate booklet in Frankfurt an der Oder in 1678, is here expanded and appended under the title Tavla shel shayish. The volume opens with an elegant engraved title page executed by the proselyte Abram bar Jacob (see lot 84), and this copy features manuscript birth, wedding, and death records of an Ashkenazic family from Amsterdam at the front and rear. Many Hasidim cherish this particular printing of the Shelah because it was published in the year some believe Rabbi Israel Ba‘al Shem Tov (d. 1760), the founder of the Hasidic movement, was born. In some circles, it has come to be referred to as the “Shelah Nahat,” the latter word serving simultaneously to denote both “pleasure” and the year of printing.
Provenance
Herz bar Israel Joseph Samuel ha-Levi, Amsterdam, Friday, 4 Sivan [5]471 [May 22, 1711] (front flyleaf)
Given by Herz to his son Samuel on the occasion of his wedding in [5]482 [1722] (front flyleaf)
Literature
Lajb Fuks and Renate G. Fuks-Mansfeld, Hebrew Typography in the Northern Netherlands[,] 1585-1815: Historical Evaluation and Descriptive Bibliography, vol. 2 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1987), 286-307, 323-324 (no. 405).
A.M. Habermann, “Ha-madpis ha-amsterdami yosef athias[,] mamtsi ha-hadpasah ha-stere’otipit,” in Perakim be-toledot ha-madpisim ha-ivrim ve-inyanei sefarim (Jerusalem: Rubin Mass, 1978), 293-310.
Marvin J. Heller, The Seventeenth Century Hebrew Book: An Abridged Thesaurus, vol. 2 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2011), 1344-1345.
Daniel M. Swetschinski, Reluctant Cosmopolitans: The Portuguese Jews of Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam (London; Portland, OR: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2000), 149-153.
Vinograd, Amsterdam 668
Avraham Yaari, “Gerim bi-melekhet ha-kodesh,” in Mehkerei sefer: perakim be-toledot ha-sefer ha-ivri (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1968), 245-255, at p. 251.