Fol. 1: A full-page frontispiece of an arch supported by two vertical panels resting on a horizontal one. They enclose Moses on the right and Aaron on the left who frame the title: Book of Psalms ((ספר תהלים written in black display script, with the rhymed colophon of the scribe in semi-cursive Ashkenazi script (seeColophon).
Moses, on the right, bearded and wearing a long white tunic with a pink cape, a red and orange drape and a red and white turban, is holding two round-topped Tablets of the Law inscribed with the opening words of the Decalogue, written horizontally. Aaron, on the left, is bearded and wears the High Priest's vestments: a long white tunic with a fringed hem, and an embroidered pink robe over it, the hem fringed with alternating golden bells and pomegranates (Ex. 28:33-34). His turban is adorned with a gold plate above his forehead (Ex. 28:36-38; 39:30-31; the artist used a mitre on his other title page (fig. 1)). The apron and the breastplate with the twelve tribal stones hang on his chest, and he holds the censer in his left hand. His right hand is raised as if to hold the chain of the censer or his flowering staff, as is depicted on other title pages (figs. 1 and 2).
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Fig. 1: Title page Yozrot for the whole year Prague, 1719 Prague, Jewish Museum MS 242 (INV 170-564) (Courtesy ofPragueJewish Museum) |
Fig. 2: Title page Sefer Ma'avar Yabbok Prague (?), 1752 Prague, Jewish Museum MS 241 (INV 3176) (Courtesy ofPragueJewish Museum) |
The bottom panel of our title page is illustrated with six Jews shown from the back or in profile, dressed similarly in black cloaks and large round hats; four are bearded and wear prayer shawls and three are holding books. They are walking towards a single-storey building with a red gabled roof, a round window, and an arched portal. Inscribed above the arched entrance, in a later Ashkenazi semi-cursive script: This gate of the Lord, into which the righteous shall enter (זה השער לה' צדיקים יבואו, Ps. 118:20).
The arch is decorated with acanthus scrolls inhabited by a green parrot and a black crow. It is surmounted by a conch and flanked by two vases of flowers. A winged cherub's head is depicted on a green foliate ground in the lunette of the arch. The spandrels are filled with a foliate trefoil motif.
A later hand added the lower text in the Tablets of the Law, the names Moses and Aaron below the figures, and the inscription above the synagogue entrance, as well as the pince-nez of two of the men in the procession.
Below the panel is another later inscription in semi-cursive Ashkenazi script, almost illegible: …בשערך. The right eyes of both Moses and Aaron and of the cherub have been effaced.