Auction 63 - Rare and Important Items
Collection of Photographs by Photographer Shmuel Yosef Schweig – Photographs from his First Years in Palestine, 1920s
Opening: $2,000
Estimate: $5,000 - $8,000
Sold for: $2,500
Including buyer's premium
158 photographs by photographer Shmuel Yosef Schweig. Palestine (few photographs from Syria and River Arnon in Jordan), [1920s].
Shmuel Yosef Schweig (1902-1984) – one of the leading photographers in Palestine in the 1920s-30s. Schweig, born in Tarnopol, Galicia, studied photography in Vienna and in London. Immigrated to Palestine in 1922. In 1925 started to work as a photographer for JNF and documented through his camera the development of Palestine and its views. Schweig opened a photography studio on Hanevi'im street in Jerusalem and served as curator of the Rockefeller Museum photography department. He was also involved in archaeological photography, photographed for the Mandate Police and headed the photography department of the Jewish Agency.
The collection offered here encompasses numerous photographs from Schweig's first years in Palestine, some in black and white and some sepia. Some photographs are numbered and titled by hand (on front or on verso, apparently in Schweig's handwriting). On a number of photographs appears the photographer's name (in the plate). Part of the photographs were printed in the folder "Yerushalem" published by Schweig in the 1920s, as postcards issued by "Eliyahu Brothers" in the 1920s-30s, and as postcards published by "Steimatzky" as part of "Artistic Photographs of the Country's Views" exhibition in the 1930s.
Among the photographs: visit of Baron Rothschild in Palestine (1925), High Commissioner Herbert Samuel with workers and pioneers, Menachem Ussishkin delivering a speech in a ceremony, panorama of Afula (consisting of four photographs), winery in Zichron Ya'akov, synagogue in Rehovot, building an electric pole in Tiberias, Tanur waterfall near Metula, "Silicat" factory in Tel-Aviv, "Exhibition and Fair for Promoting Local Products", and a number of additional photographs from Tel-Aviv, R. Yohanan Ben Zakai synagogue in Jerusalem, landscape photographs from Jerusalem, from different angles and photographs of the Western Wall and Rachel's Tomb, houses, streets and lanes in Haifa, Eliyahu's Cave in Mount Carmel and views in the vicinity of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Zebulun valley, Genosar valley, the Jordan River, Jericho and the Dead Sea, "Kfar Yeladim" educational institute (established in 1922, presently in Afula), Tiberias hot springs and grave of R' Meir Baal Haness, Beit Alfa, Ein Harod, Degania, Rosh Pina, Metula, "Givat Hachotzvim" of G'dud Ha'avodah between Kfar Giladi and Metula, a number of photographs documenting the establishment of Kfar Hasidim in Zebulun valley and its first years, irrigation and drainage tunnels, drying swamps in Jezreel valley, picking oranges and packaging oranges, a convention of Hebrew authors and artists in Kiryat Anavim, and more.
Size varies. Average size: 10 X 15 cm (some smaller or larger). Condition varies. Tears at margins of some photographs, creases, stains and dampstains. Defects and tears to back of some photographs caused by old pasting (mostly professionally restored).
Shmuel Yosef Schweig (1902-1984) – one of the leading photographers in Palestine in the 1920s-30s. Schweig, born in Tarnopol, Galicia, studied photography in Vienna and in London. Immigrated to Palestine in 1922. In 1925 started to work as a photographer for JNF and documented through his camera the development of Palestine and its views. Schweig opened a photography studio on Hanevi'im street in Jerusalem and served as curator of the Rockefeller Museum photography department. He was also involved in archaeological photography, photographed for the Mandate Police and headed the photography department of the Jewish Agency.
The collection offered here encompasses numerous photographs from Schweig's first years in Palestine, some in black and white and some sepia. Some photographs are numbered and titled by hand (on front or on verso, apparently in Schweig's handwriting). On a number of photographs appears the photographer's name (in the plate). Part of the photographs were printed in the folder "Yerushalem" published by Schweig in the 1920s, as postcards issued by "Eliyahu Brothers" in the 1920s-30s, and as postcards published by "Steimatzky" as part of "Artistic Photographs of the Country's Views" exhibition in the 1930s.
Among the photographs: visit of Baron Rothschild in Palestine (1925), High Commissioner Herbert Samuel with workers and pioneers, Menachem Ussishkin delivering a speech in a ceremony, panorama of Afula (consisting of four photographs), winery in Zichron Ya'akov, synagogue in Rehovot, building an electric pole in Tiberias, Tanur waterfall near Metula, "Silicat" factory in Tel-Aviv, "Exhibition and Fair for Promoting Local Products", and a number of additional photographs from Tel-Aviv, R. Yohanan Ben Zakai synagogue in Jerusalem, landscape photographs from Jerusalem, from different angles and photographs of the Western Wall and Rachel's Tomb, houses, streets and lanes in Haifa, Eliyahu's Cave in Mount Carmel and views in the vicinity of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Zebulun valley, Genosar valley, the Jordan River, Jericho and the Dead Sea, "Kfar Yeladim" educational institute (established in 1922, presently in Afula), Tiberias hot springs and grave of R' Meir Baal Haness, Beit Alfa, Ein Harod, Degania, Rosh Pina, Metula, "Givat Hachotzvim" of G'dud Ha'avodah between Kfar Giladi and Metula, a number of photographs documenting the establishment of Kfar Hasidim in Zebulun valley and its first years, irrigation and drainage tunnels, drying swamps in Jezreel valley, picking oranges and packaging oranges, a convention of Hebrew authors and artists in Kiryat Anavim, and more.
Size varies. Average size: 10 X 15 cm (some smaller or larger). Condition varies. Tears at margins of some photographs, creases, stains and dampstains. Defects and tears to back of some photographs caused by old pasting (mostly professionally restored).
Photographs - Palestine
Photographs - Palestine