Diagram of Adam Ha-Kadmon: Portion of a Kabbalistic Scroll [Europe: 20th century?]

1 leaf (16 1/2 x 13 3/4 in.; 420 x 350 mm) Ink on paper, text and images on both sides. Stained; soiled; marginal losses repaired. Glazed on both sides for viewing. Modern wood frame.

This double-sided poster Ilan is a unicum, unlike any other currently known. It has no colophon, but would appear to be of relatively recent European origin. The paper bears a water mark that should allow for a more precise provenance to be established. Like the other Ilanot in the collection, this Ilan presents a visualization of Primordial Adam (Adam Kadmon)—in fact, it presents two (one on each side)—that is not indebted to the Poppers traditions described above. It would also seem that this artifact is a work-in-progress never brought to completion. The text has yet to be fully deciphered, but the incorporation of a passage from the Italian R. Immanuel Chai Riki’s (1688-1743) Mishnat Hasidim has been noted.

Two manuscript families of poster-size Ilanot from the seventeenth century feature single synoptic images of the Godhead, as we find here. In these early exemplars, large, framing concentric circles surround complicated arrays of arboreal diagrams, all surrounded by and embedded with densely inscribed texts. The Moussaieff unicum, however, bears only the slightest resemblance to them due to the suggestions of circles at its margins. Did the unknown creator of this singular artifact find inspiration in anatomical drawings of the female reproductive system? Given the biological-developmental motifs of Lurianic Kabbalah, this admittedly Rorschach-reading should not be dismissed out of hand!

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