Auction 89 - Rare and Important Items

Passover Haggadah – Lithograph – Bombay, 1856 – Particularly Scarce Edition – Only Extant Complete Copy

Opening: $5,000
Estimate: $10,000 - $15,000
Sold for: $10,625
Including buyer's premium
Passover Haggadah, with Judeo-Arabic translation (sharh). [Bombay, 1856]. Presumably printed without title page. Lithographed manuscript.
Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic, paragraph after paragraph. The text of the Haggadah is in vocalized, square script, while the Judeo-Arabic translation is in Rashi script or unvocalized square script. The text of Birkat HaMazon and Nishmat at the end of the Haggadah were printed without vocalization.
Illustration of the Seder plate on leaf 15. Decorative initial word panel on p. 22b.
Handwritten inscriptions on the endpapers: "Benyamin David Hayaem", in Hebrew and English.
3-40 pages, 41-72 leaves. 14.5 cm. Partially printed on bluish paper. Fair-good condition. Stains. Worming, affecting text. Marginal open tears to some leaves, including open tears slightly affecting text on final leaf. Detached leaves. Early leather binding, detached, with worming and defects (leaves from a Marathi translation of the Bible were used in binding).
Yaari 750; Otzar HaHaggadot 1018; Yaari, HaDfus HaIvri BeArtzot HaMizrach, Bombay, no. 5.
Particularly scarce Haggadah. The Bibliography of the Hebrew Book lists this Haggadah based on two copies (one in photocopy) lacking many leaves. One of these copies (from the Sassoon collection) is held in the NLI (and digitized); it is damaged and mostly lacking. The copy offered here is presumably the only extant complete copy.
Prayer Books and Haggadot
Prayer Books and Haggadot