Le Juif-Errant [“The Wandering Jew”]. Image of a young Frenchman directing away a pejoratively drawn Jew from his Christian town. With French lyrical text below.
AUCTION 64 |
Thursday, March 19th,
2015 at 1:00
Fine Judaica: Books, Manuscripts, Autograph Letters, Ceremonial Objects, Maps and Graphic Art
Lot 288
(ANTISEMITICA).
Le Juif-Errant [“The Wandering Jew”]. Image of a young Frenchman directing away a pejoratively drawn Jew from his Christian town. With French lyrical text below.
Metz, Gangel & Didion, c. 1860:
Est: $500 - $700
The poem demands: “You (the Jews) are guilty of such sin, otherwise why would God, ever so kind, have you so afflicted.”
In the foreground of the image, there are three crosses on a mountaintop (Jesus was crucified and hung between two convicted thieves), a likely allusion to the original 13th century legend - wherein a Jew taunted Jesus on the way to the Crucifixion and was then cursed to wander the earth until the Second Coming.