Medieval History
The anonymous 16th-century painter who recorded a scene of everyday life at the king?s fountain (Chafariz d?El Rei) in Lisbon depicted an impressive range of people and animals. In addition to a swan, a seal, fish, horses, dogs and birds, the artist also included more than 150 human figures. There?s so much going on in the busy scene along Lisbon?s port that Joaneath Spicer, the James A. Murnaghan Curator of Renaissance and Baroque Art at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, can be forgiven for initially overlooking an important detail. Only after she had finished working on the exhibition catalog did Spicer notice how many Jews appeared in the work.
The artist depicted at least half a dozen Jewish men ? the women?s religious identities are more difficult to discern ? including two Jewish policemen hauling away a black man who appears, according to the wall text, to be ?drunk and sheepish.? The latter figure and several other Africans explain the painting?s appearance in the exhibit ?Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe,? which is at the Walters through January 21. It subsequently travels to the Princeton University Art Museum, where it will be shown from February 16 to June 9.
?I was really unaware of the presence of so many Jews in this painting until I began to blow up details of a photo in preparation for installing the work,? says Spicer, who recognized the Jewish figures from research she conducted for a 1996 article, ?The Star of David and Jewish Culture in Prague around 1600,? which appeared in The Journal of the Walters Art Gallery. ?This is the only image I know of ? certainly painting from this period that purports to show Jews from life.?
Click here tor read this article from the Jewish Daily Forward
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Medieval History
Medieval Painting Hints at Ties Between Blacks and Jews
The anonymous 16th-century painter who recorded a scene of everyday life at the king?s fountain (Chafariz d?El Rei) in Lisbon depicted an impressive range of people and animals. In addition to a swan, a seal, fish, horses, dogs and birds, the artist also included more than 150 human figures. There?s so much going on in the busy scene along Lisbon?s port that Joaneath Spicer, the James A. Murnaghan Curator of Renaissance and Baroque Art at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, can be forgiven for initially overlooking an important detail. Only after she had finished working on the exhibition catalog did Spicer notice how many Jews appeared in the work.
The artist depicted at least half a dozen Jewish men ? the women?s religious identities are more difficult to discern ? including two Jewish policemen hauling away a black man who appears, according to the wall text, to be ?drunk and sheepish.? The latter figure and several other Africans explain the painting?s appearance in the exhibit ?Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe,? which is at the Walters through January 21. It subsequently travels to the Princeton University Art Museum, where it will be shown from February 16 to June 9.
?I was really unaware of the presence of so many Jews in this painting until I began to blow up details of a photo in preparation for installing the work,? says Spicer, who recognized the Jewish figures from research she conducted for a 1996 article, ?The Star of David and Jewish Culture in Prague around 1600,? which appeared in The Journal of the Walters Art Gallery. ?This is the only image I know of ? certainly painting from this period that purports to show Jews from life.?
Click here tor read this article from the Jewish Daily Forward
- Remembering China?s Forgotten Jewish Community At Passover
It should therefore come as no surprise that Chinese and Persian Jewish scholars, Fook-Kong Wong and Dalia Yasharpour, have just jointly published a well-annotated reproduction of the Passover Haggadah of that now defunct Jewish community of indigenous...
- Two Poets From Medieval Spain
The great medieval Jewish poets of Spain are part and parcel of our Jewish heritage; names like Dunash ibn Labrat, Solomon ibn Gabirol, Moses ibn Ezra, Samuel Hanagid and Yehuda Halevi immediately come to mind. However, it comes as no surprise that all...
- Ceremony Lays To Rest Bones Of Three Medieval Jews In Northampton
A ceremony has taken place to mark the resting place of the bones of three medieval Jews found in the town. The skeletal remains were found by archeologists in 1992 in Temple Bar, The Mounts, in an area known to be part of the town?s medieval Jewish cemetery....
- Uneasy Communion: Jews, Christians, And The Altarpieces Of Medieval Spain
Highlighting a rare instance of artistic collaboration between Christians and Jews in the Middle Ages, Uneasy Communion: Jews, Christians, and the Altarpieces of Medieval Spain, on view at the Museum of Biblical Art in New York City from February 19 through...
- Crossing Borders: Hebrew Manuscripts As A Meeting-place Of Cultures
The Bodleian Library at Oxford University will start an exhibition next week, which tells the story of how Jews, Christians and Muslims have together contributed to the development of the book as an object of great cultural importance. The exhibition...