Would you have thought that a 1722 century encyclopedic study of the peoples of the world would portray Jews in a positive light?
Bernard Picart (16731733), a Protestant artist from France, settled in Amsterdam in 1710, in part to find greater religious freedom than he had in Catholic France. Picarts magnum opus is the magnificently documented and illustrated multi-volume encyclopedia, 唬矇娶矇鳥棗紳勳梗莽 et Co羶tumes R矇ligieuses de tous les Peuples du Monde [Ceremonies and Religious Customs of All the People of the World]. This boundary breaking work depicted people and groups from all over the world in an objective, realistic manner. Picarts work and approach differs from most other illustrations of Jewish rites at the time, generally written by Jewish converts to Christianity.
Picart took an interest in the Jewish community in Amsterdam and documented Jewish religious life and rites in his own original engravings in 唬矇娶矇鳥棗紳勳梗莽. He made great efforts to attend a Passover Seder to enable him to label his depiction of it: dessine d'apres nature (drawn from life), a characterization which he also noted in his engravings of a Torah and its appurtenances. His meticulous engravings are reproduced here. An unusual object in this grouping is a small box with names of the members in order to keep track of synagogue honors on the Sabbath, without needing to write down the names of the honorees.
The open Torah in this grouping in 酴圖弝けs copy of this work (1783 edition) is presumably unique a piece of paper with the first verses of the Ten Commandments in a square calligraphic handwriting was glued on top of the opening in the Torah. A drawing behind the paper creates the illusion that the verses were written on two tablets, which are rounded at the top the ubiquitous image of the tablets Moses received on Mt. Sinai. A few other small changes are visible as well.
What is in the opening in the Torah in the printed edition? An online image from the 1722 edition shows a Trompe lOeill image of three columns in the Torah; there are Hebrew letters visible in the columns but only a few letters form words.
Why would the owner of the 1783 edition cover the images of the three Torah columns? We will likely never know. Was his original torn or damaged? Perhaps he wanted to perceive the beginning of the Ten Commandments as the heart of the Torah image. After all, werent the Ten Commandments the Table of Contents the heart of Judaism, presented as Jews were beginning a new chapter as a people?
Sources:
Image from 1722 edition:
The book that changed Europe : Picart & Bernard's Religious ceremonies of the world / Lynn Hunt, Margaret C. Jacob, Wijnand Mijnhardt.Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass, 2010.
Posted by Shulamith Z. Berger
