Obj. ID: 39165
Sacred and Ritual Objects  Besomim, Brno (Brünn), 1856

The following description was prepared by William Gross:

In Jewish tradition the end of the Sabbath and other Jewish Holidays is marked by the ceremony of Havdalah (Separation) that differentiates between the Holy nature of the holdiay and the profane nature of the following day. This ritual is accomplished by lighting a special candle with several wicks, drinking wine from a cup and the inhalation of the sweet smell of spices. In the Ashkenazi world these spices were usually held in a container which was often shaped in varying forms.

There exist a large number of spice towers of this form in different sizes. That such a large number of towers would exist from the city of Brno, in which there was not a large Jewish population and which was not the center of an area of extensive Jewish settlement, is surprising. The silver mark, a monogram of "JR", was recently discovered to be the initials of a silversmith, Josef Ruhmann from Boskovice. According to the dates on such towers, he apparently worked from the 1840's to the 1860's. Almost identical form towers were later produced by a silversmith who apparently worked as Ruhmanns apprentice and then in his own workshop, Emanuel Eisler, whose mark, "EE", is found on numerous spice towers. There is another spice tower by this maker in the Gross family collection, 015.001.031. Almost 200 examples of these two silversmiths have been traced until today.