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Judaica at the V&A: Hanukkah Lamps
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 takes at tour through the V&A galleries to look at Hanukkah lamps from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. |
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| Hanukkah Lamp made of brass, similar to the one discussed at left. Dutch, c. 18th century. | |
 he first Hanukkah lamp I'm looking at is triangular-shaped, and although it's labelled thirteenth century, it's actually a nineteenth-century copy of a thirteenth-century lamp. The decoration is interesting because it combines Christian and Muslim or Moorish imagery: it has a rose window depicted and also a row of keyhole arches, like the ones on the Bernal spice box that is also in our collection. There are eight lamps: eight sections for oil and one section at the side for an oil lamp, called the Shamash, which would have been used to light the other lamps. Originally they would have been hung outside houses and later on during times of persecution kept inside the home. One has been found very similar to this in France which is almost identical except that the Shamash is in the centre at the top rather than at the side, so we know that it's definitely a thirteenth-century design. |
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| Hanukkah Lamp from the V&A's collections. Brass; Polish c. 18th century. | |
The Hanukkah story recounts the victorious Maccabee rebellion over the Syrian Greeks ruling Israel in 165 BCE. The Jewish people were continually being persecuted for practicing their faith and the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. The Jews managed to fight back, lead by Judas Maccabeus, and won. But when they went to the synagogue they found that the everlasting lamp had been extinguished and pigs had been sacrificed at the altar. When clearing it they found one small sample of oil that they thought would last for one day. So they rekindled the lamp with that, but they didn't think that would really be much good for them as it needed to last longer so as to give them time to get more oil and relight it. But a miracle happened: it lasted for eight days, which gave them that time. Hanukkah means dedication because you dedicate yourself to lighting the candle, and it's seen as a time of a rekindling of the Jewish spirit, as the light of God has kindled the Jewish spirit again. |
Early Hanukkah lamps were made in the style of the Roman oil lamps that had eight sections in them. Then the Jews started making triangular-shaped lamps, and here, we've got a number of Italian lamps to be hung from a wall. They are very elaborate. They have eight rows of columns for oil but none of the imagery is Jewish, it's all Greek mythology--mythological beasts being very much a Renaissance style. Later lamps were made with options to either hang on the wall or to have them freestanding and we have some Polish lamps with which you can do that. Some of the Polish lamps in fact have two candle-holders for Sabbath lamps. The traditional menorah shape (the seven-branched candlestick which was in the Temple in Jerusalem) is really a design of the nineteenth century, the nine-branched menorah being the one with the Shamash and the extra branch for Hanukkah. In earlier collections of Jewish art you don't tend to see that shape--they date from the nineteenth century. |
This British Hanukkah lamp in silver is quite interesting, with a rather charming little bucket underneath to catch the drips of oil. It was made by Jacob Marsh for a family living in Gibraltar and was donated by one of the descendants to whom it originally belonged. These Hanukkah lamps reflect the places and artistic styles of the time that they were made. As we have seen we have one with Moorish design, several with Italian Renaissance design, some in traditional folk Polish design and then there's this British one, using Rococo eighteenth-century silversmithing style and techniques as well. |
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