Name/Title
Hanukah menorahEntry/Object ID
K_0162Tags
main displayDescription
Last picture in Narkis book
Oil in "eggs" with spout
Like a "tree" (Pomegranate)
Large silver figures at base (Pomona)
Translation from Berlin Museum catalogue, p 271-272, Via Google Translate: (translation is iffy here; see file for Berlin museum catalogue in German for future attempts at translation)
The Hanukkah candlestick by master gold and silversmith George Wilhelm Margraff is a masterpiece of the Friedrichian Rococo. On the three-legged rocaille base there is a figure in a heroic pose with a rose branch in her right hand. The candlestick rises as a tree, the branches ending in spouts in the shape of grenades with small lids. The nozzles are numbered from 1 to 8. The upper end is formed by a female figure with a head burden, a leaf-like eaves bowl with a leaf-studded candle spout; it is intended for lighting the eight lamps.
The base is decorated with sculptural figures of Judith with the sword in one hand and the severed head of Holofernes in the other, pointing to the relationship between the Hanukkah festival and the heroine Judith, who saves her people through a courageous, albeit gruesome, act saved. Another figure in the costume of a medieval Jew (?) is using a torch to light a miniature candlestick in the shape of a bush with a central trunk and three branches protruding from each side, the nozzles shaped like almond buds. The Book of Judith, an apocryphal on Wisely tortured to death because she
refused to follow the Jewish rulesto break religion. You are in the 2nd MakBook of Kabes described as a martyr, who accept death as a victim of religious persecution was most likely written during the period of Hasmonean rule. The original Hebrew version was already in the 4th century AD. Century lost, but with the literature about the battle of the Hasmoneans, the temple miracle to which the Hanukkah festival refers, the story of Judith was also passed down. Her heroic act was understood as a parable, a paradigm for faithfulness to faith and observance of the law, from which liberation follows. The interpretation of certain names, words and letters in the Hebrew text with purity, house of God, Jewish people associated Judith with all those who saved the Jewish people throughout history and gave their lives as martyrsben. The Judith theme was transferred from the iconography of medieval Hebrew illumination into the symbolism of ceremonial art, namely the Hanukkah candlesticks and lamps as well as the Torah shields. The attributes of the female figure in the respective clothing of the era were the sword and the severed head Holofernes. This individual, figurative The Ge interprets this as a formal expression Judith is not a parable, but
der reflects the idea of the real female person, the historical heroine of biblical history. The thematic treatment of Judith in the visual arts is shaped by this idea, while the literary tradition is based on an overarching concept that uses a historiographical fiction as the occasion for a moral statement. Only within this concept is Judith equated with Hannah and her seven sons. These were done in a cruel way suffered damage. Judith, on the other hand, saved her people by killing herself. Hannah and her sons went down in Christian church history as saints, while Judith experienced the transformation into the protagonist of treachery and betrayal of men through the power of love. In Christian art she stands side by side with Delila and Salome. This figuration of Judith is also a departure from the Christian interpretation of Judith of the Middle Ages, according to which she was typified as a symbol of the triumph of virtue over vice (Judith virtue, Holofernes vice) and of purity over the devil. It is writing here, and in a figuration of the victorious church. Jewish painters, for example Nathaniel Sichel (Mainz 1843-1907 Berlin), with his painting Judith with the sword, also followed the image of the woman who makes the man the victim of his love and passion. In Judaism, however, the clear paradigm lived on into the Middle Ages in the liturgical poems recited at Hanukkah. In these narrative recitations, Judith represents loyalty to Judaism and liberation through courage and overcoming.
The story of Judith from the book of Apocrypha tells how the city of Bethulia was besieged by Holofernes, the commander of the king of Assyria. After a month, the city was close to collapse due to a lack of drinking water. Then the young and beautiful widow Judith appeared to the elders
sten and promised rescue. She went to the tent camp and visited Holoternes, who invited her to a night of love. She apparently agreed, but when Holofernes fell asleep from drunkenness, she beheaded him and sneaked out of the camp back into the city. When the crime was discovered in the morning, the Assyrian soldiers fled in panic. The city of Berhulia was liberated.
Hannah and her seven sons are told in the 7th chapter of Maccabees II, a book of the Apocrypha about the reign of Seleucus IV. At the beginning of the persecutions by Antiochus IV Epiphanes, Hannah captured with their sons. Instead of saving their lives through submission (the sons sold pork in public) and sparing them a painful death, Hannah encouraged her sons in their decision not to break the religious law. She herself also died out of despair over her martyrdom
Children. Handed down in rabbinic literature, the Hannah story was incorporated not only into the liturgical poetry of Judaism, but also into the saints.
layer of Christianity. The recitation on Hanukkah combines the historical event of the Maccabee Revolt with the moralizing story of steadfastness and loyalty to Judaism. In Christianity, the Seven Maccabean Brothers were the prototype of Christian martyrdom. Her bones, in the 5th AD. Brought to Rome in the 19th century, they were buried as relics in San Pietro in Vincoli. In Jewish tradition, the sons of Hannah are associated with all those events in history in which loyalty and religious conviction stand against tyrannical rule and persecution and this loyalty is seen as a decisive fact.
goal of Jewish tradition.
On the candlestick, see Berlinische Notes, 1984, p. 9; et al.;
About Judith, see: Mira Friedman, The Metamorphoses of Judith, in: JA, pp.225-246; there detailed literature; About I Hannah and the seven brothers, see Wilhelm Bacher, Jewish Martyrs in
Christian calendar, in: Yearb. for Jewish. business and Lit., 1901 pp. 70-85; Encycl. Jud., vol. 7, columns 1270-72.
A treillage fence that was not part of the chandelier and was mounted on the base when purchased in 1983 was removed.
distant. (See p. 247). Wolfgang Scheffler describes a counterpart of Marggraff's candlestick,
which only has the figure of the beheaded Holofernes, but not the other figurative sculptures. See Scheffler, p. 184, there Fig. 38.Made/Created
Artist
George Wilhelm MargraffPlace
City
Probably Vienna, ViennaCountry
AustriaContinent
EuropeNotes
Date made: 18th centuryDimensions
Height
34 inWidth
26-1/2 in