Auction 72 - Rare and Important Items
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Auction 72 - Rare and Important Items
July 7, 2020
Opening: $5,000
Estimate: $8,000 - $10,000
Unsold
A gilt porcelain cup decorated with an antisemitic illustration; with a matching saucer. [Presumably, made at the porcelain factory in Schlaggenwald (currently Horní Slavkov, the Czech Republic), ca. 1830].
A gilt-decorated porcelain cup, with three paw feet and scrolling handle encircling a lion head. Matching saucer, gilt at lip and center. With a hand-illustrated colorful picture: a European parlor where a man in bourgeois attire is sitting, holding a golden coin. Standing by his side is a young man in a military uniform and opposite them, a small figure of a Jew in traditional attire and long side locks, begging for the coin. On the other side of the parlor, a soldier armed with a whip and a sword is guarding a closed door.
This mocking scene, intensified by the lack of proportion between the figures, is unique among antisemitic images popular in the 19th century. Its source of inspiration is uncertain; it may refer to contemporary events or to some literary work, or may emerge from stereotypes associating Jews with poverty, begging and greed.
Maximal height: 11 cm. Diameter of rim: approx. 8.5 cm. Good condition. Chipping to paw feet. Wear and scratches to gilt decorations. Diameter of saucer: approx. 15.5 cm. Good condition. Minor blemishes. A later serial number added to bottom of cup and saucer.
A gilt-decorated porcelain cup, with three paw feet and scrolling handle encircling a lion head. Matching saucer, gilt at lip and center. With a hand-illustrated colorful picture: a European parlor where a man in bourgeois attire is sitting, holding a golden coin. Standing by his side is a young man in a military uniform and opposite them, a small figure of a Jew in traditional attire and long side locks, begging for the coin. On the other side of the parlor, a soldier armed with a whip and a sword is guarding a closed door.
This mocking scene, intensified by the lack of proportion between the figures, is unique among antisemitic images popular in the 19th century. Its source of inspiration is uncertain; it may refer to contemporary events or to some literary work, or may emerge from stereotypes associating Jews with poverty, begging and greed.
Maximal height: 11 cm. Diameter of rim: approx. 8.5 cm. Good condition. Chipping to paw feet. Wear and scratches to gilt decorations. Diameter of saucer: approx. 15.5 cm. Good condition. Minor blemishes. A later serial number added to bottom of cup and saucer.
Category
Antisemitism
Catalogue
Auction 72 - Rare and Important Items
July 7, 2020
Opening: $3,000
Estimate: $4,000 - $6,000
Unsold
"Fagin – the Jew" / "Oliver Twist" – a poster presumably advertising an American theatrical production of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist. Color woodblock. Hartford (Connecticut, USA): Calhoun Print Co., [ca. late 19th century]. English.
Impressive, large poster, featuring three illustrations to the novel Oliver Twist after illustrations of the English artist George Cruikshank for the first edition of the novel.
The central, large illustration (titled "Fagin's Last Night Alive") depicts Fagin the Jew before his execution, hunched on his prison bunk, biting his fingernails. The two illustrations in the corners of the poster (titled "Oliver Introduced to the Old Gent" and "Oliver’s Reception by Fagin and the Boys") depict Fagin's crime – enticing Oliver Twist to join the gang of thieves. Fagin's figure in all three illustrations, as in the novel itself, follows common antisemitic stereotypes – his nose is elongated and he is wearing old and filthy clothes.
Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens' second novel, was published as a serial during the years 1837-1839 in the English newspaper Bentley's Miscellany. The novel tells the story of the orphan Oliver who is expelled from a workhouse after asking for another portion of gruel. After arriving to London, he is forced to join a gang of children-pickpockets led by one of the most well-known villains in the history of English literature – the elderly Fagin. The Jewishness of Fagin, depicted as a child-corrupting demonic criminal, is emphasized time and again throughout the novel by various means, including the constant reference to "The Jew", which appears more times than the character's name (Fagin is called "The Jew" no less than 257 times compared with the 42 times he is called by his name or "The Old Man").
Fagin's character elicited severe criticism by the Jewish community in England; many accused Dickens of antisemitism and hatred of Jews. Dickens denied these claims again and again and in a letter to a Jewish acquaintance, Eliza Davis, he wrote that Fagin in Oliver Twist was a Jew since "it unfortunately was true, of the time to which the story refers, that that class of criminal almost invariably was a Jew". In later editions of the novel, personally edited by Dickens (from 1863 onwards), the reference to "the Jew" was mostly removed, not appearing in the last 15 chapters of the book even once. This poster explicitly makes this controversial word choice – the phrase "Fagin – the Jew" is printed in large characters on its bottom (the words "the Jew" were omitted from later reproductions of the broadside).
Despite Dickens' later efforts to downplay Fagin's Jewishness, his character became a prototype of the criminal Jew. Over the 19th and 20th centuries, it became a common theme in antisemitic art and appeared on a variety of artifacts – figurines, cups, plates, candlesticks, jugs, fireplace tools and more. See: The Jew in Antisemitic Art, by Peter Ehrenthal, Jerusalem, 2011, pp. 27-32 (the present poster documented on p. 32).
107.5X209.5 cm (printed on three sheets of paper, attached to each other). Good-fair condition. Tears, including open tears (mostly small), some repaired (with paper and paint). Some stains. Linen-backed for display and preservation.
Impressive, large poster, featuring three illustrations to the novel Oliver Twist after illustrations of the English artist George Cruikshank for the first edition of the novel.
The central, large illustration (titled "Fagin's Last Night Alive") depicts Fagin the Jew before his execution, hunched on his prison bunk, biting his fingernails. The two illustrations in the corners of the poster (titled "Oliver Introduced to the Old Gent" and "Oliver’s Reception by Fagin and the Boys") depict Fagin's crime – enticing Oliver Twist to join the gang of thieves. Fagin's figure in all three illustrations, as in the novel itself, follows common antisemitic stereotypes – his nose is elongated and he is wearing old and filthy clothes.
Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens' second novel, was published as a serial during the years 1837-1839 in the English newspaper Bentley's Miscellany. The novel tells the story of the orphan Oliver who is expelled from a workhouse after asking for another portion of gruel. After arriving to London, he is forced to join a gang of children-pickpockets led by one of the most well-known villains in the history of English literature – the elderly Fagin. The Jewishness of Fagin, depicted as a child-corrupting demonic criminal, is emphasized time and again throughout the novel by various means, including the constant reference to "The Jew", which appears more times than the character's name (Fagin is called "The Jew" no less than 257 times compared with the 42 times he is called by his name or "The Old Man").
Fagin's character elicited severe criticism by the Jewish community in England; many accused Dickens of antisemitism and hatred of Jews. Dickens denied these claims again and again and in a letter to a Jewish acquaintance, Eliza Davis, he wrote that Fagin in Oliver Twist was a Jew since "it unfortunately was true, of the time to which the story refers, that that class of criminal almost invariably was a Jew". In later editions of the novel, personally edited by Dickens (from 1863 onwards), the reference to "the Jew" was mostly removed, not appearing in the last 15 chapters of the book even once. This poster explicitly makes this controversial word choice – the phrase "Fagin – the Jew" is printed in large characters on its bottom (the words "the Jew" were omitted from later reproductions of the broadside).
Despite Dickens' later efforts to downplay Fagin's Jewishness, his character became a prototype of the criminal Jew. Over the 19th and 20th centuries, it became a common theme in antisemitic art and appeared on a variety of artifacts – figurines, cups, plates, candlesticks, jugs, fireplace tools and more. See: The Jew in Antisemitic Art, by Peter Ehrenthal, Jerusalem, 2011, pp. 27-32 (the present poster documented on p. 32).
107.5X209.5 cm (printed on three sheets of paper, attached to each other). Good-fair condition. Tears, including open tears (mostly small), some repaired (with paper and paint). Some stains. Linen-backed for display and preservation.
Category
Antisemitism
Catalogue
Auction 72 - Rare and Important Items
July 7, 2020
Opening: $5,000
Estimate: $8,000 - $10,000
Sold for: $6,250
Including buyer's premium
Three letters handwritten by the writer Émile Zola, sent after he was sentenced to one year's imprisonment and fled to England. Signed by the pseudonyms "Pascal", "J. Beauchamp" and "Z". London, 1898. French.
The French writer and publicist Émile Zola (1840-1902) was one of the major supporters of Alfred Dreyfus when he was indicted in 1895 of high treason and spying for Germany. In 1897, Zola published a series of articles defending Dreyfus and in January 1898, published in the newspaper "L'Aurore" the article "J'Accuse…!" – an open letter to the French president in which he accused military leaders, the War Office and the military court of miscarriage of justice. The publication of the letter caused a stir in France, and having been brought to trial for libel and sentenced to a year in prison, Zola fled to England.
On July 19, 1898, with nothing but a note with the name of The Grosvenor Hotel, Zola descended the train at Victoria Station in London. Zola's time in England was one of the darkest in his life and during this period, he communicated with a small handful of friends only, by means of notes and short letters. Fearing the French police will track him down, these letters were economical and laconic in style. He almost never mentioned his acquaintances by their name and signed by various pseudonyms. Only in June 1899, after the French Supreme Court declared that Dreyfus would be retried, did Zola return to his country.
Offered here are three letters that Zola had written in London:
1. A Letter from July 20, 1898 (a day after Zola arrived in England), written on The Grosvenor Hotel stationery, being an attempt to set up a meeting at the hotel. At the end of the letter, Zola writes: "Ask for Mr. Pascal". (The name Pascal, a homage to the hero of the novel Zola had published in 1893 – Le Docteur Pascal, was used in only a few letters and was changed due to the possibility that it might raise the suspicion of French-speakers).
[1] leaf (one written page).
2. A letter from August 4, 1898. Presumably sent to Ernest Alfred Vizetelly (an English writer and journalist who translated Zola's works into English). In the letter, Zola informs the recipient that his new bicycle does not fit his size: "the bicycle Mr. Wareham rented for me does not fit. The handlebars are not high enough and when I want to turn around, they hit my knees…". Signed: "J. Beauchamp" (This name was used by Zola during his stay in the Oatlands Park Hotel on the outskirts of London; Zola rode a bicycle for the first time in 1893 and immediately fell in love with the new vehicle. In order to cheer him up in his difficult situation, his friends in London, Ernest Vizetelly and his wife Maria, decided to find him a new bicycle).
[1] folded leaf (two written pages).
3. An undated letter, announcing the arrival of Zola's wife to England: "I received a letter from my wife confirming her arrival tomorrow night, Tuesday. Fasquelle is supposed to inform you, but since she fears he might forget, I ask you this favor. Even if you do not receive any notice, go to Victoria Station and wait for the five o'clock train. If you find no one, send me a note […] I will be desperate if my wife arrives without finding you". Signed: "Z".
[1] leaf (two written pages).
Three letters. Approx. 18 cm. Good condition. Minor blemishes. An open tear to top of first letter (small; not affecting text).
The French writer and publicist Émile Zola (1840-1902) was one of the major supporters of Alfred Dreyfus when he was indicted in 1895 of high treason and spying for Germany. In 1897, Zola published a series of articles defending Dreyfus and in January 1898, published in the newspaper "L'Aurore" the article "J'Accuse…!" – an open letter to the French president in which he accused military leaders, the War Office and the military court of miscarriage of justice. The publication of the letter caused a stir in France, and having been brought to trial for libel and sentenced to a year in prison, Zola fled to England.
On July 19, 1898, with nothing but a note with the name of The Grosvenor Hotel, Zola descended the train at Victoria Station in London. Zola's time in England was one of the darkest in his life and during this period, he communicated with a small handful of friends only, by means of notes and short letters. Fearing the French police will track him down, these letters were economical and laconic in style. He almost never mentioned his acquaintances by their name and signed by various pseudonyms. Only in June 1899, after the French Supreme Court declared that Dreyfus would be retried, did Zola return to his country.
Offered here are three letters that Zola had written in London:
1. A Letter from July 20, 1898 (a day after Zola arrived in England), written on The Grosvenor Hotel stationery, being an attempt to set up a meeting at the hotel. At the end of the letter, Zola writes: "Ask for Mr. Pascal". (The name Pascal, a homage to the hero of the novel Zola had published in 1893 – Le Docteur Pascal, was used in only a few letters and was changed due to the possibility that it might raise the suspicion of French-speakers).
[1] leaf (one written page).
2. A letter from August 4, 1898. Presumably sent to Ernest Alfred Vizetelly (an English writer and journalist who translated Zola's works into English). In the letter, Zola informs the recipient that his new bicycle does not fit his size: "the bicycle Mr. Wareham rented for me does not fit. The handlebars are not high enough and when I want to turn around, they hit my knees…". Signed: "J. Beauchamp" (This name was used by Zola during his stay in the Oatlands Park Hotel on the outskirts of London; Zola rode a bicycle for the first time in 1893 and immediately fell in love with the new vehicle. In order to cheer him up in his difficult situation, his friends in London, Ernest Vizetelly and his wife Maria, decided to find him a new bicycle).
[1] folded leaf (two written pages).
3. An undated letter, announcing the arrival of Zola's wife to England: "I received a letter from my wife confirming her arrival tomorrow night, Tuesday. Fasquelle is supposed to inform you, but since she fears he might forget, I ask you this favor. Even if you do not receive any notice, go to Victoria Station and wait for the five o'clock train. If you find no one, send me a note […] I will be desperate if my wife arrives without finding you". Signed: "Z".
[1] leaf (two written pages).
Three letters. Approx. 18 cm. Good condition. Minor blemishes. An open tear to top of first letter (small; not affecting text).
Category
Antisemitism
Catalogue