Obj. ID: 54164
Sacred and Ritual Objects Mazal Tov, Nitra (Nyitra), 1831/2
The following description was prepared by William Gross:
In the 19th century, the art of illuminated codexes and Esther scrolls declined almost to the point of disappearance. There were a few exceptions, with a scribe named Mordechai ben Yosef Sofer from Nitra in Slovakia being perhaps one of the most skilled and prolific among them. From his recorded works we know that he worked in the 20's and 30's of the 19th century. Both manuscript and printed works are known from his hand, six copies of which are in the Gross Family Collection. Not only was he a skilled artist in making illustrated codexes, but clearly his skill as an engraver of copper etchings did not fall from the codex manuscripts he made. This copper plate etched amulet is the work of Mordechai Sofer. Until recently this amulet was known in one copy only, in the Feuchtwanger collection in the Israel Museum. This second original copy is now in the Gross Family Collection. This original printing of the amulet is mounted on cardboard with a loop, showing how such amulets were mounted and hung on the wall of the room for the mother and child.
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sub-set tree:
In the early 1990s, while visiting Cracow, I found the original copper etching plate for this page preserved in the collection of the National Museum in Cracow. The museum acquired the plate in 1938. Two copies of the amulet were printed for me from the original copper plate etched some 160 years earlier. The amulet is a birth amulet, carrying all the formulas and names used for the protection of mother and child. These include references to Lilith, the names of the Patriarchal couples, and the names of Sanoi, Sansanoi, and Samangelaf, the three angels the presence of whose names are protection against Lilith.
Some thirty years later, a scribe in Ohnsdorf, Slovakia, used the amulet as inspiration for a papercut birth amulet (036.011.008). The other five works in the Gross Family Collection are two Esther scrolls (081.011.002 and 081.011.003), the 1992 etching of this amulet (027.011.030), a Sefirat Haomer book (B.2016), and a manuscript codex (HU.012.002).