Ink and gouache on paper (10 1/4  x 8 in.; 260 x 205 mm). Paper strengthened, particularly at edges; losses, infrequently affecting text and image; some flaking of pigment; minor stains, expertly restored. Hinged and matted.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it became common practice to hang a decorative plaque known as a shivviti in synagogues and private homes to serve as a visual and textual reminder of the constant presence of God. Usually suspended on the eastern wall or in front of the cantor’s lectern, these artworks often included the image of a stylized menorah and other implements used in antiquity in the Temple in Jerusalem.

The present shivviti was created by the artist Zevi Hirsch ben David, who is known to have produced an extraordinary group of six micrographic plaques in Amsterdam between 1800 and 1823. It incorporates images of the Table of the Shewbread (at left), the Altar (below center), and the menorah (inscribed with the words of Ps. 67; at right), along with its attendant implements (the tongs and snuffdishes). The document is framed with biblical and mystical verses associated with the Temple and the menorah. Two nearly-identical shivvitis are held in the collections of the Beinec✅ke Library at Yale University (Hebrew +93:14) and the Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg (Codex Levy 45). A third exemplar, now lost, was once in the collection of Elkan Nathan Adler, London.

Literature

Heinrich Frauberger, Über alte Kultusgegenstände in Synagoge und Haus: mit 151 Abbildungen (Frankfurt am Main💜: Gesellschaft zur Erforschung jüdischer Kunstdenkmäler, 1903), 76-77.

Irina Wandrey (ed.), Ausstellungskatalog “Tora-Talmud-Siddur” (Hamburg: Universität Hamburg, 2014), 303-309.