Showing Results 1 - 10 of 272
The top register of this plaque from Hazor depicts a crouching winged sphinx wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. The lower register shows two stylized three-tiered palmettes. The…
This ivory openwork inlay from Samaria depicts a figure enthroned on a cushioned chair, perhaps at a banquet, with an attendant standing behind. Royal banquet scenes, common in ancient Near Eastern…
Scarab-shaped seal, Achziv, Iron Age IIC (732/701–586 BCE). Seals were used as stamps to impress images and/or words onto clay objects. They were often perforated so they could be suspended from cords…
In Ashkenazic communities, circumcision benches with two seats were sometimes used from the nineteenth century on, one for the sandek, the godfather on whose lap the baby boy is circumcised, and one…
This alms container from Charleston, South Carolina, is made of cast and engraved silver. The cartouche on the front features two rampant lions flanking a menorah. The Hebrew inscriptions read:…
In the nineteenth century, especially in the era before photography, it was common for artists to travel to exotic or picturesque locations in Europe, North Africa, and the Near East, and to produce…
This ewer and basin from Turkey were used to wash hands ritually during the Passover seder. Owned by the Benguiat family, a large and prominent Sephardic family in the Ottoman Empire, the objects…
A ketubah is a religious and legal contract of marriage. Traditionally, it outlines the conjugal and economic conditions of a marriage and is written in Aramaic. This ornate ketubah from Oran, Algeria…
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…
Congregation Shearith Israel was the first Jewish congregation established in North America, and the only Jewish congregation in New York City from 1654 until 1825. Between 1654 and 1730, it used…
