Portrait of Jacob Judah Leon Templo

Shalom Italia

1640–1649

Print of man in moustache and skullcap facing viewer and holding cloth in left hand, encircled by Latin text. Beneath his portrait is an unraveled scroll with illustration of figures and large buildings.
This is one of three known portraits of Jacob Judah Leon Templo, who was famous for his elaborate wooden model of the Temple of Solomon, which he turned into a traveling exhibition and showed and lectured about at fairs in the Netherlands and in England. He also wrote treatises on the ark and cherubim, which he illustrated himself. This version of the portrait of him by the Jewish artist Shalom Italia appeared in Templo’s treatise on the cherubim. At bottom is a picture of the “tabernacle of Moses” on the left and, on the right, his imagined recreation of Solomon’s Temple.

Credits

Salomon Italia, Portret van Jacob Jehuda Leon, 1640–1649. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 5.

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Creator Bio

Shalom Italia

1619–1655
Engraver, etcher, and draftsman Shalom Italia was, as his name indicates, from Italy, where his family worked in the Mantua printing industry. However, probably attracted by the opportunities in the growing metropolis, he made his way to Amsterdam by 1641. Among Shalom Italia’s works are illustrated ketubot (marriage contracts), book illustrations, and portraits of the community’s leading figures, such as Menasseh Ben Israel, who was the founder of Amsterdam’s first Hebrew printing press and an advocate for the readmission of Jews to England.

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