LITURGY FOR THE COUNTING OF THE OMER AND THE BLESSING OF THE NEW MOON, SCRIBE: JEKUTHIEL SOFER, AMSTERDAM: 1766
Auction Closed
November 20, 08:47 PM GMT
Estimate
4,000 - 6,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
LITURGY FOR THE COUNTING OF THE OMER AND THE BLESSING OF THE NEW MOON, SCRIBE: JEKUTHIEL SOFER, AMSTERDAM: 1766
11 folios (2 7/8 x 2 1/8 in.; 73 x 53 mm) (collation: i1, ii4, iii-v2) on parchment; early (contemporary?) foliation in pen in Hebrew characters and Arabic numerals in upper-outer and lower-outer corners, respectively, of each recto; written in elegant eighteenth-century Sephardic square (text body) and semi-cursive (rubrics) scripts in black ink; ruled in blind; remnants of prickings visible on ff. 9-10; justification via dilation and contraction of letters and use of anticipatory letters; horizontal catchwords in lower margins of most pages; vocalization on f. 9r only; tagin (crowns) added to letters on ff. [1r]-8v (midway). Incipits and emphasized texts enlarged; colophon on f. 5v. Slight scattered staining and thumbing. Contemporary blind- and gilt-tooled dark green calf, worn along the edges; red leather lettering piece with abbreviation of title in gilt, torn at the sides; contemporary patterned paper flyleaves and pastedowns. Housed in a contemporary brown cardboard slipcase, joints splitting and heavily worn; lined with marbled paper.
A charming pocket-size devotional manuscript.
The seven-week period between Passover and Shavuot is marked by the counting of the omer. For forty-nine days, beginning with the second day of Passover on which the korban ha-omer (new barley offering) was brought in the Temple, a special blessing is recited and the particular day of the omer is counted. Starting in the first half of the eighteenth century, scribe-artists were commissioned to create manuscripts containing the blessing, a listing of the forty-nine days, as well as assorted related prayers in order to facilitate the observance of this commandment. The present lot, executed in miniature in an accomplished hand, includes the sefirat ha-omer liturgy (ff. 1r-4v), a collection of psalms (ff. 5r-8v), and the text of birkat ha-levanah (ff. 8v-10v), the blessing recited over the appearance of the New Moon each month. It was copied by Jekuthiel ben Isaac Sofer, a master scribe who produced numerous elegant manuscript artworks in the second half of the eighteenth century in Amsterdam, several of which are currently held by the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana in that city.
Provenance
Jacob ben Judah (title page)
Ephraim ben Fishl, 1835 (front flyleaf)
Literature
Anon., Catalog einer sehr werthvollen Sammlung Hebräischer, Jüdischer […] Bücher und Handschriften […] (Amsterdam: Gebr. Levisson firma D. Proops Jz., 1891), 55 (no. 1266).
Anon., Catalog einer sehr werthvollen Sammlung Hebräischer, Jüdischer […] Bücher und Handschriften […] (Amsterdam: Gebr. Levisson firma D. Proops Jz., 1896), 59 (no. 1870).
Anon., Catalog der reichhaltigen Sammlungen Hebräischer und Jüdischer Bücher, Handschriften […] (Amsterdam: J.L. Joachimsthal, 1899), 248 (no. 4284).
Lajb Fuks and Renate G. Fuks-Mansfeld, Hebrew and Judaic Manuscripts in Amsterdam Public Collections, vol. 1 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1973), 3 (no. 2), 4 (no. 10), 81-82 (no. 167), 82 (nos. 168-169), 148-149 (no. 323), 149 (no. 324).
Lajb Fuks and Renate G. Fuks-Mansfeld, Hebrew and Judaic Manuscripts in Amsterdam Public Collections, vol. 2 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1975), 150 (no. 277).