Passover Haggadah According to the Ashkenazic and Sephardic Rites, Amsterdam: Solomon Proops, 1712

Passover Haggadah According to the Ashkenazic and Sephardic Rites, Amsterdam: Solomon Proops, 1712

The second edition of the enormously-influential Amsterdam Haggadah.

In 1695, two Amsterdam printers issued a “bicultural” Passover Haggadah that, while somewhat influenced by the 1629 Venice edition of the work, also charted new territory by developing a distinctive iconography. As noted by those printers, the old Venetian Haggadot were no longer readily available, and so a new model was needed. This was supplied by the artist Abram bar Jacob “of the family of our forefather Abraham,” apparently a German cleric who had converted to Judaism in Amsterdam. Instead of using traditional woodcuts, Bar Jacob created copperplate engravings, whose superiority over their predecessors “is like the advantage of light over darkness” (Eccl. 2:13). Bar Jacob borrowed the vast majority of his illustrations from the Swiss engraver Matthäus Merian, who was in turn inspired by the German painter Hans Holbein. He displayed his originality, however, in a few instances: he included a depiction of a young Abram smashing his father’s idols; he added an image of Abram crossing the river into Canaan in the background of his portrayal of the arrival of the three angels; and he grouped the Four Sons together in one plate, whereas up until that point they had been pictured separately.

The 1695 Haggadah text was accompanied by an abridged version of Don Isaac Abrabanel’s (1437-1508) Zevah pesah, different from that appearing in the aforementioned Venice edition, as well as an esoteric commentary culled from Rabbi Isaiah ha-Levi Horowitz’s (ca. 1565-1630) Sefer shenei luhot ha-berit. Its instructions were given in Hebrew, Yiddish, and Ladino, and two versions of the korekh (sandwich) formula and birkat ha-mazon (grace after meals) were printed to accommodate the variances between the Ashkenazic and Sephardic rites. The volume closed with Bar Jacob’s engraved Hebrew map of the itinerary of the Israelites in the Wilderness and their entry into the Land of Israel—one of the earliest printed Hebrew maps—modeled on the cartographic work of Christian Kruik van Adrichem. 

The present lot is a slightly altered reprint of the 1695 Haggadah. The six vignettes on the title page of the first edition are replaced by a scene of Moses at the Burning Bush, apparently also executed by Bar Jacob based on Merian’s model. Historiated woodcut initials have been added throughout, and two cycles of illustrations that featured in the aforementioned Venice Haggadah—the stages of the Seder and the progression of the ten plagues—have been adapted for inclusion here. In subsequent years, the illustrations of the Amsterdam Haggadot would achieve great popularity and go on to be imitated more than those of any other Haggadah in history.

Physical Description

[1], 31 folios (11 7/8 x 7 7/8 in.; 302 x 197 mm) (collation: [1], i-vii4, viii2, ix1) on paper, with 1 intricately engraved foldout map of the exodus from Egypt and the entry into the Land of Canaan. Engraved title page featuring Moses and Aaron flanking the text, surmounted by a vignette of Moses kneeling in awe at the Burning Bush; one full-page engraved cycle of illustrations of the stages of the Seder on f. 2r; fifteen half-page engraved illustrations on ff. 5v, 6r, 7v, 8r, 9v, 10v, 11r, 12r, 12v, 13r, 14v, 15r, 16r, 23r, 29r; woodcut ornaments on ff. [1r], 20r; numerous woodcut historiated initials. Slight scattered staining; intermittent minor repairs in edges and margins; repaired wormtracks throughout, slightly affecting text; title page remargined; repaired tear in middle of title page; short tear in gutter at foot of f. 4; long repaired tear in outer edge of f. 12. Modern calf, gilt-tooled on upper board and blind-tooled on lower board; spine in six compartments with raised bands; title, place, and date lettered in gilt on spine; modern paper flyleaves and pastedowns. Housed in a modern green leather-covered slipcase.

Literature

Harold Brodsky, “The Seventeenth-Century Haggadah Map of Avraham bar Yaacov,” Jewish Art 19-20 (1993-1994): 149-157.

Harold Brodsky, “Clues to The Hidden Midrash on Bar Yaacov’s Hebrew Map,” Israeli Map Collectors Society Journal 13 (July 1996): 36-43.

Amir Cahanovitc, “Mappot be-haggadot pesah” (M.Ed. thesis, Achva Academic College, 2015), 34-85.

David Frankel, “Illustration, Allusion, and Commentary: Choosing the Four Sons in 1695,” Images 4 (2010): 18-24.

A.M. Habermann, “The Jewish Art of the Printed Book,” in Cecil Roth (ed.), Jewish Art: An Illustrated History, revis. Bezalel Narkiss (London: Vallentine, Mitchell, 1971), 163-174, at p. 173.

Abraham J. Karp, From the Ends of the Earth: Judaic Treasures of the Library of Congress (New York: Rizzoli; Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1991), 78-80, 82-83.

Cecil Roth, “Ha-haggadah ha-metsuyyeret she-bi-defus,” Areshet 3 (1961): 7-30, at pp. 22-25.

Vinograd, Amsterdam 949

Avraham Yaari, Bibli’ogerafyah shel haggadot pesah me-reshit ha-defus ve-ad ha-yom (Jerusalem: Bamberger & Wahrman, 1960), 9-10 (no. 73).

Avraham Yaari, “Gerim bi-melekhet ha-kodesh,” in Mehkerei sefer: perakim be-toledot ha-sefer ha-ivri (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1968), 245-255, at p. 250.

Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Haggadah and History (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2005), plates 59-62, 66-69.

Isaac Yudlov, Otsar ha-haggadot: bibli’ogerafyah shel haggadot pesah me-reshit ha-defus ha-ivri ad shenat [5]720 (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1997), 14 (no. 120).