Spice Container
Artist Unknown
ca. 1550
Image
This ritual spice container is thought to have been made in Frankfurt am Main. It is decorated to represent a four-story tower with brick walls. At its top, two short spires flank a central, taller spire etched with delicate patterns and adorned with small windows. A balcony sits below with an ornately decorated railing. On its second level, a large central window is decorated as a floral petal. The third story is further embellished with a grid of windows followed by a heavy-set door at its base. Tower shapes became the most popular style for spice boxes in Europe beginning in the sixteenth century.
Credits
Spice Container. Jewish Cultural Reconstruction / The Jewish Museum, New York.
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 5.
You may also like
Paper Cut—Shiviti Sign
Paper cuts have been a tradition of Jewish folk art, with the earliest record of one dating to the fourteenth century. Given the widespread availability of paper in Europe by the mid-nineteenth…
Reader’s Desk
This wooden tevah—a stand or reader’s platform used for supporting Torah scrolls—was made and used in Yemen. It was the practice in Yemen for boys to become active participants in synagogue services…
Portrait of Tzvi Ashkenazi
Tzvi Hirsch ben Jacob Ashkenazi was a talmudist and community leader from Moravia. He was also known as the Ḥakham Tzvi, a Sephardic scholarly title he is thought to have received from the rabbinic…
You may also like
Paper Cut—Shiviti Sign
Paper cuts have been a tradition of Jewish folk art, with the earliest record of one dating to the fourteenth century. Given the widespread availability of paper in Europe by the mid-nineteenth…
Reader’s Desk
This wooden tevah—a stand or reader’s platform used for supporting Torah scrolls—was made and used in Yemen. It was the practice in Yemen for boys to become active participants in synagogue services…
Portrait of Tzvi Ashkenazi
Tzvi Hirsch ben Jacob Ashkenazi was a talmudist and community leader from Moravia. He was also known as the Ḥakham Tzvi, a Sephardic scholarly title he is thought to have received from the rabbinic…