Obj. ID: 39157
  Sacred and Ritual  Hanukkah lamp, Tübingen, circa 1825

The following description was prepared by William Gross:

The festival of Chanukah is celebrated in the winter period around December and commemorates a Biblical story in which the Jews of the Land of Israel rebel against the Greek occupiers. They reclaim the desecrated Holy Temple in Jerusalem and, miraculously, the small amount of pure oil remaining is enough to keep the Temple light going for eight days. Lamps with eight burners are lit during this holiday, both in the synagogue and at home. Through the centuries, such lamps have taken a wide variety of forms.

Fashioned in the form of a standing Menorah, a relatively common form in Germany, this lamp has a number of parallels, mostly larger, among lamps created in Central Europe during the 150 years after 1700. No other object of Judaica crafted in Tübingen is recorded, so this must have been a special piece specifically commissioned by a customer from this artisan. The silversmith, Heinrich Kommerell, was one of a very few silver artisans working in Tübingen in the first half of the 19th century. He retired from his craft in 1835. He is listed in a book about the family, "Familienchronik Kommerell" by Otto Kommerell, published in Tübingen in 1943, which includes a drawing of him smoking his pipe.