Ralph Earl was a self-taught, itinerant portrait painter, the son of a farmer. A Loyalist, he fled to England during the American Revolution. When he returned to the United States in 1785, he soon ended up in prison because of nonpayment of debts. When he was released, a wealthy patron helped him get commissions as a society portrait painter. He is credited with painting at least 183 portraits.
Many types of objects—furnishings and clothing, jewels and medals, wares crafted by Jews or specifically for use by Jews—are included in the Posen Library.
Drawing of a wooden synagogue from Maximilian Syrkin’s 1910 article, “Drevníya derevyannyye sinagogi v pol’she litve” (Wooden Synagogues in Polish Lithuania). Wooden synagogues were a common form of…
This graphic depiction of the Passover song “Had Gadya” (“Tale of a Goat”) juxtaposes the collective memory of the exodus from Egypt with Soviet revolutionary art and politics.
This bronze physician’s mortar from Verona, Italy, is decorated with a seven-branched candelabrum, flanked by the Hebrew letters mem and resh, likely the initials for the Hebrew term for “physician’s…