Obj. ID: 39611
Jewish printed books GFC Ze'ev Raban Esther Scroll, Jerusalem, 1920s
A miniature Esther scroll produced by the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design of Jerusalem in which the illustrations are designed by Ze'ev Raban (born Wolf Ravitzki). It opens with the narrative scene that is one of seven episodes from the Purim story incorporated in it; the images appear between the text columns, however, with no regularity. Their size is approximate to the text columns. The outlines are printed in black ink and then colored by hand. The scenes are in decorative frames except for the last episode that is unframed. In the lower parts of the frames are printed captions in Hebrew that are the appropriate quotations from the Megillah. The text and decorations in the scroll are printed on parchment membranes.
The scroll is stored in a wooden olive case decorated with a depiction of the Western Wall.
The scroll features a mixture of Persian miniatures with Western-orientalist symbolic elements that was characteristic for Raban's works.
sub-set tree:
Dimensions of the selected details in the scroll:
- illustration no. 1: 36x62 mm;
- illustration no. 3: 36x38 mm;
- an average letter: around 1,5 mm (height).
The case: 190 mm (height), 50 mm (diameter).
Both, the scroll and the case, are well preserved.
The Book of Esther in Hebrew
Text is printed on 8 parchment membranes with a total of 30 text columns with 14 lines per each, except for the column containing the Haman's sons section written in 11 lines divided into two half-columns.
No bibliography on the scroll is available.
For more information on the artist see Zeev Raban (Ravitzki), Information Center for Israeli Art, https://museum.imj.org.il (30.12.2019).
Some works of Zeev Raban are available on: Zeev Raban, Artists, http://www.artnet.com (30.12.2019).