Small Shevithi Protective Plaque.

AUCTION 79 | Thursday, November 15th, 2018 at 1:00 PM

The Valmadonna Trust Library: Further Selections from the Historic Collection. * Hebrew Printing in America. * Graphic & Ceremonial Art

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Lot 171

(SASSOON FAMILY)

Small Shevithi Protective Plaque.

Hebrew manuscript written in elegant square script in various sizes <<on vellum.>> Displays the Divine Name of God (the Tetragrammaton), Psalm LXVII arranged as a seven-branched Menorah and surrounded by multi-colored stylized flowers and foliage with Kabbalistic formulae. <<* Housed in:>> National Bank of India envelope, the front of which contains an autograph note signed by Flora Sassoon in her distinctive Hebrew hand: “This Menorah was given to me as a gift by R. Joseph, my father’s uncle, in the month of Adar I, 1935. He received it from my grandfather, the Tzadik Suleiman, Kislev, 1894.” 4.5 x 6.5 inches.

(India): 19th century

Est: $2,000 - $3,000

The verse (Psalm 16:8) “I place [Shevithi] the Lord before me always” is regarded by the devout as a focus of meditative contemplation. Hence the “Shevithi” became a distinct genre of Jewish ceremonial art, embellished with mystical and artistic features, as an object of veneration. Clearly members of the Baghdad-Bombay-London Sassoon Family paid great heed to such piety and carried the present Shevithi as a personal talisman. Flora (Farha) Sassoon (1859-1936) was married to the businessman and philanthropist Solomon David Sassoon (1841–94), and was a unique, published, rabbinic scholar in her own right. She was the mother of the great bibliophile David Solomon Sassoon (1880-1942) and grandmother of the learned Solomon David Sassoon (1915-85).