A German Linen Matzah Case and A Linen Challah Covering, Markbreit late 19th Century/early 20th Century

both elaborately designed and painted in watercolour, gold paint and ink, the borders with yellow trim,  the first circular, with two trumpeting angels flanking a crown above a variety of vignettes and texts from the Passover story, signed Pollack Markbreit;  the second square, with similar angels and crown above a ribbon inscribed in Hebrew "Remember the Sabbath and keep it Holy", further decorated with  the text of the Kiddush for the Sabbath and for the holidays throughout the year with images of the various holidays scenes,  signed in German designed and drawn by Pollack, Markbreit

Markbreit is a municipality in the district of Kitzingen in Bavaria. Records indicate a Jewish presence  there in 1487, however the Jews were then expelled in 1553.  They resettled again in 1636 and six years later, were granted religious freedom and other privileges, allowing the community to develop and prosper.  A synagogue was constructed in the late 17^th century by the prominent Wertheimer family. The Jewish population peaked in 1890 with 320 inhabitants, but declined steadily thereafter. Nonetheless, a Jewish public school was opened in 1920, which remained active until Kristallnacht when, as well as the synagogue, it was vandalized. Following this, the population diminished as Markbreit's Jews either managed to emigrate or were deported to Izbica, near Lublin or to Theresienstadt. (see: The Encyclopedia of Jewish life Before and During the Holocaust, New York and Jerusalem, 2001)