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Judaica at the V&A: A Torah Mantle and Thirteenth-century Spice Box
From: The Victoria and Albert Museum
| By:
Marilyn Greene |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
The first objects of Judaica in the V&A's collections were purchased before the establishment of the Museum itself; indeed, many items in the collection were bought before the establishment of any Jewish museums in the world. While the V&A pioneered the collecting of Jewish art, its holdings are nonetheless not representative of the Jewish religion as a whole, as they were collected merely for aesthetic reasons. Marilyn Greene shows us two special gallery objects: a Torah mantle and thirteenth-century spice box. |
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| Thirteenth-century spice box. | |
 am standing in front of a very small spice box, which is the first piece of Jewish art to be bought by the V&A for their collection. It was bought from someone called Ralph Bernal, who was a collector, and it was sold at Christie's and thought to be a Christian reliquary but in fact it was found to be a thirteenth-century Spanish spice box. It is very rare indeed in that all the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492 and few objects such as this survive. Now it's possibly through means of leaving the country it's been made smaller at some point in its history. If you look at other spice boxes in the collection you'll see they all have a bulb on them and a stem. This stem has been cut off and the tower has been placed directly on the bulb, so maybe they cut it down to make it smaller--we don't know. Again we can tell it's Spanish because of the Moorish decoration of keyhole arches. As with a common shape for Rimmonim, spice boxes often represented the towers in which spices were dried in medieval times--this one is of a Spanish style, but others may be of Germanic style or from elsewhere. |
Spice boxes are used for a service at the end of the Sabbath, or shabbat, called Havdallah, meaning 'separation'. The boxes are fillled with spices, which represent the richness of the Sabbath. The scent enlivens the spirit and carries the soul through into the next Sabbath, which starts at dusk on Friday evening. A twisted candle is also lit, and sweet wine is drunk. On this spice box, the lid opens from the top, there's a little hook. It's made from copper gilt which is again quite a poor quality material in comparison to other spice boxes that were made later from silver. The interesting thing is that a) this is so old and there are very few if any others in the in the world known about, and b) that it was bought before this museum was actually ever built. It was bought while the Museum of Manufacturers, as the V&A was known at the time, was at Marlborough House not South Kensington. |
Torah Mantle
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| Embroidered image of castle. | |
This is a Torah Mantle from the latter half of the seventeenth century from the Spanish/Portuguese Sephardic synagogue in Amsterdam. It's a very elaborate work and it has a very ornate embroidered picture of a building in the centre, which is in fact the Ark of the Law of that synagogue--the house in which this Torah Mantle would have been kept. It also has various features, which are quite symbolic in Jewish ritual art: above the picture of the embroidery of the Ark of the Law from that synagogue there is a crown called the Crown of the Torah. The Torah is the law of God and you often see crowns depicted on Judaica. This is rather interesting in terms of embroidery, because it is raised away from the surface. Parchment or material has been stuffed inside it to make it protrude as a lip over the picture of the Ark of the Law. |
The Torah Mantle's sole use is to cover and protect the Torah it contains. The Torah is a handwritten scroll comprising the Five Books of Moses, the first five books of the Old Testament, which contain all the laws and instructions for Jewish ritual. A portion of it is read out each week in Synagogue--it takes a year to complete the readings. Traditionally the Torah is kept in a curtained-off area known as the Ark of Law. The Rabbi lifts the Torah and its mantle out of this space in front of the congregation. This mantle is decorated with tassels. At the bottom, it has gold and silver-gilt tassels, interspersed with either metal bells or just things that would make a noise, so that when the Torah is paraded through the synagogue, the Torah (symbolic for the law of God), can be heard. Those bells and tassels are representative of what the high priest in biblical times was meant to have on the bottom of his robe--bells and tassels. |
The sides are luxuriously decorated with embroidered images of wheat and pomegranates and fruit. Some of these fruits are symbols of Israel. There are seven symbols of Israel, which include wheat and barley, olives, grapes, honey, pomegranates and figs.  The back of the Torah Mantle is almost as elaborate, with cartouche shapes with symbols of the biblical Temple sacrifice in Jerusalem and the harp, sceptre and crown--symbols of King David. This mantle would have contained the Torah, the first five books of Moses, the first five books of the Bible. The Torah, covered by such a mantle would have been seen as the most holy thing in the synagogue. Often the Jewish decorations in synagogues are items that can be taken away to the next place they move to in times of persecution. Much money was spent in the fabrics of these kinds of materials: this Mantle is made mainly with gold thread and with velvet, so very luxurious materials. It was bought by a collector called Murray Marks in the 1870's, and is one of the first pieces of Judaica to come into the V&A's collection--it isn't the first because the first was a spice box bought in the 1860's even before this building at South Kensington was built. |
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| Rimmonim. | |
Murray Marks also bought the Rimmonim, which means 'pomegranates' in Hebrew. They are the bells that dress the top of the Torah. The two poles holding the Rimmonim are called Trees of Life, and it would normally be the handles of the scroll that you would see coming through the Torah mantle. Unlike the Torah mantle these are not the Dutch tower-shaped Rimmonim that would have been made to go with this Mantle, but are Italian Rimmonim made in the shape of pomegranates in filigree open work style. The wire has been beautifully soldered together in wonderful decorations and has bells hanging in four places on them. It has bells at the bottom hanging off the leaves of the pomegranates, the pomegranates are crowned with a Crown of the Law again, so very similar to the Torah Mantle in decoration, and then topped with Fleurs de Lys from which the bells hang. If you look carefully you can see that within the crowns themselves are little round brass bells in a traditional oval bell shape. This would all add to the significance of it being paraded through a synagogue and would be particularly significant in festivals such as Simchat Torah, the crowning celebration of a period of religious festivals marking the Jewish New Year. This is when the last portion of the Torah is read and during the services all the scrolls are paraded around the synagogue. |
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