On June 27th, Sotheby’s auction house in New York City held a sale of Judaica belonging to various owners, with offerings of objects, books, and manuscripts, both old and contemporary. Here are the highlights:
The star attraction of the auction was The David Moss Haggadah, which is a masterful work of modern manuscript-making by the artist David Moss. He was commissioned by the collectors Richard and Beatrice Levy to execute a haggadah in a scholarly fashion and have it decorated in the style of haggadot from the medieval era, when only the extremely wealthy could order a haggadah made for them entirely by hand and have it lavishly decorated, including with gold leaf. The auction catalog states that “renowned Judaica artist David Moss devoted three years on three continents to full-time work researching, conceiving, and executing his commission. The resulting volume, which comprises the present lot, combines intellectual creativity, imaginative playfulness, deeply learned iconography, graceful calligraphy, and skillful artistry to magnificent effect.”
The finished haggadah was presented to the Levys in 1984 and subsequently was exhibited in various institutions and had a number of intellectuals reviewing some of the more interesting aspects of the haggadah, including one writer calling it “one of the most beautiful works in the history of the Jewish book.” Given an estimate of $400,000-$600,000, it sold for $480,000. A colleague of mine told me that the Levys reportedly paid well over $500,000 to David Moss to make this monumental work, so in addition to adjusting for 44 years of inflation, whoever the current owner of this haggadah is got a bargain with the amount they paid at Sotheby’s.
Regular readers of this column may recall that I have mentioned items made by the Bezalel School of Arts & Crafts in Jerusalem (1906-29) on a number of occasions when answering readers’ questions about their heirloom or antique shop purchases; in fact I dedicated an entire column to discussing Bezalel, featuring photos of a few pieces that are in my personal collection (see “How The Bezalel Academy Was Born,” from the May 19, 2023 issue, which you can find on the website of The Jewish Press). In this recent Sotheby’s sale, two carpets made by Bezalel in the 1920s sold for record-breaking figures, far surpassing the highest amounts previously achieved at auction for Bezalel carpets.
The first carpet, measuring a typical size of four-and-a-half feet by three feet, depicted a palm tree, various animals, and a lengthy Hebrew verse from Shir Hashirim (Song of Songs) going all around the rectangular border of the carpet. Although a number of other examples of this carpet are known and have appeared before at auction, the example featured at Sotheby’s had a prestigious provenance, as it came from the collection of Anton Felton, an internationally recognized authority on the history of Jewish carpets, and this very carpet was illustrated in his 1997 book, Jewish Carpets: A History and Guide. Assigned an estimate of $10,000-$15,000, the carpet sold for $45,600, an eye-watering figure for any Bezalel carpet, as other similar examples have previously sold for less than half that amount. However, as many people in the antiques and art world know, provable provenance can add significant monetary value to a piece, as it gives the buyer an assurance of the item’s authenticity.
The second Bezalel carpet featured in the Sotheby’s sale was of a style I had never seen before, and I could not locate other examples ever appearing at auction or in any personal or public collection, including museums worldwide. This carpet was of a larger size than the previous example, measuring five-and-a-half feet by three-and-a-half feet. It had a striking center image of interlocking doves, while along the very wide border were repeated motifs of lions and the Temple Menorah. This exact design was featured as an illustration in the 1923 edition of Shir Hashirim illustrated by the iconic Bezalel artist Ze’ev Raban. Given an estimate of $10,000-$15,000, it sold for $36,000, which is fascinating, as one would think a never-before-seen Bezalel carpet would realize a stronger result than a well-known example of a Bezalel carpet, but as is often the case at auction, provenance – or lack thereof – can be a deciding factor in the mindset of potential bidders, whether private collectors or museum representatives.
Jewish Press readers who may be frequent visitors to the Jewish Museum of New York likely remember what antique Judaica used to be on permanent display there for many decades: rows and rows of personal Chanukah lamps, oil paintings by iconic Jewish artists of 19th-century Europe, Pesach seder trays in all mediums, and much more, including five enormous brass Chanukah lamps that originated from synagogues in Poland which were destroyed during the Second World War. These free-standing lamps were quite old, dating to the 17th and 18th centuries. Tragically, almost a decade ago, the museum’s board of directors decided to go “in a new direction,” and after years of remodeling the main exhibit floor, the museum opened in 2018 with all of these formerly permanent displays of beautiful Judaica and Jewish art being placed in a storage facility, of which only a handful of examples would be brought out for a select period of time to display in a continuous, ever-changing exhibit entitled “Scenes From A Collection.”
To address an inanimate object as a “friend” may seem strange, but ever since I was a small child visiting this museum with my parents, I always thought of those five Polish synagogue lamps – which, until I was a teenager, stood taller than me – as my friends, and now I likely would never see them again, or perhaps I would see just one of them for a short period, only to have it placed back into the storage facility for years on end.
A small consolation for my personal issue was found at this Sotheby’s sale, as there on the exhibit floor stood a tall brass Chanukah lamp from a Polish synagogue. While not nearly as old or as finely crafted as the museum examples, this mid- or late-19th century piece did have some of the features seen on the Jewish Museum Chanukah lamps, including the base of the lamp resting on three fully formed lions. Estimated at $25,000-$35,000, it sold for $30,000.
Finally, a hand-cut, pierced, and engraved silver mezuzah by the artist Ilya Schor was offered. Schor (1904-61) was born in Ukraine to a chassidic family. After fleeing Paris in 1940, he landed in New York City, and began making artwork that would keep fresh his memories of the life of the Jews in the shtetls of Eastern Europe. He was a creator of unique jewelry and mostly small Judaica objects in silver and gold. The Sotheby’s mezuzah depicted Moses receiving the Tablets against a background of mother-of-pearl discs and shaped panels, flanked by prophets holding Torah Scrolls and Hebrew inscriptions. Estimated at $10,000-$15,000, the mezuzah sold for $19,200.
The next sale of antique Jewish objects at Sotheby’s is slated for June 2025, and I will, G-d willing, report the highlights of in this column.
