Large minutely detailed engraving entitled: Origin of the Rites and Worship of the Hebrews. Composed by Julius Bien.

AUCTION 75 | Thursday, March 08th, 2018 at 1:00 PM
Auction of Fine Judaica: Printed Books, Manuscripts, Autograph Letters, Antiquities, Ceremonial Objects & Graphic Art

Back to Catalogue View 3D Catalogue Download Catalogue

Lot 100
(AMERICAN JUDAICA).

Large minutely detailed engraving entitled: Origin of the Rites and Worship of the Hebrews. Composed by Julius Bien.

<<* Accompanied by:>> (Companion volume) Max Wolff. Explication of an Engraving Called the Origin of the Rites and Worship of the Hebrews. Additional Hebrew title-page. Kabbalistic diagrams. pp. 112. Browned. Original boards, rubbed and chipped. 8vo. * Engraving unexamined out of frame, 25 x 36 inches.

New York:

Est: $4,000 - $5,000
Remarkable pictorial composition representing a cornucopia of Judaic iconographic symbols and figures along with Hebrew textual narrative derived from Jewish lore and service. Max Wolff states in his preface that he was ministering to the Chabei Shalom Congregation of Boston, where he was inundated with queries concerning the present engraving (originally produced in Paris, 1851). Consequently, Wolff reproduced it for the American market together with an extended translation of the explanatory booklet. Julius Bien was a respected lithographer who fled Germany for New York after having participated in the unsuccessful revolution of 1848. While receiving US Government contracts for engraving geological and geographical publications, he was also involved in Jewish communal life as director of both the Hebrew Technical Institute and the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of New York.