Artibus et Historiae no. 17 (IX)
1988, ISSN 0391-9064Up
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KURT SCHUBERT - The Wise Men of Bne Braq in Haggadah Illuminated Manuscripts of the Eighteenth Century
The iconography of the Amsterdam Pesach Haggadah (print 1695; 1712) is influenced by Mathaeus Merian's Icones Biblicae. Its "ideator " was a Christianwho converted to Judaism in Amsterdam. The German-Ashkenaz scribes and painters of the eighteenth century repeatedly followed the prototypes of the Amsterdam editions of prints, which they for the most part only slightly, but also at times more fundamentally varied. Especially difficult for them was the portrayal of the five wise men of Bne Braq, who debated the Exodus until morning. The prototype for this scene was Merian's portrayal of the banquet given by Joseph in Egypt for his brothers. But the number of persons seated at the table did not fit at all. The scribes and painters mostly reduced the number, but only rarely did they succeed in reducing the number to five. Further details were conducive to adapting the scene to the text of the Haggadah: the fact that it is morning; the presence of a bookshelf, defining those seated at the table as scholars. In contrast to the German-Ashkenaz scribes and painters, those in Italy were influenced by the Venetian prints of 1599 and 1609, which were also occasionally used by German-Ashkenaz illuminators.
