A Prayer-Book for the weekday and Sabbath, as well as selected holiday prayers. According to Italian (Roman) rite.

AUCTION 72 | Thursday, March 16th, 2017 at 1:00

Fine Judaica: Printed Books, Manuscripts, Autograph Letters, Holy Land Maps & Fine Art

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Lot 253

(LITURGY).

A Prayer-Book for the weekday and Sabbath, as well as selected holiday prayers. According to Italian (Roman) rite.

Hebrew Manuscript on paper. Written by <<[Haim] Mikhel ben Anshel Emden>> in brown ink on paper in a minuscule Ashkenazic semi-cursive script; headings and running titles in square script. pp. 114 (excluding blanks), 40-44 lines per page. Original pagination in ink. Very lightly soiled, wear as expected. Scribal colophon on p. 114, additional owners’ notes on rear free endpapers. Original maroon calf, tooled and paneled, gilt extra, spine in five compartments, upper cover tooled in Hebrew: Gimpel ben Anshel Emden, marbled endpapers, lightly rubbed. 32mo.

Amsterdam: 1739

Est: $7,000 - $9,000

PRICE REALIZED $10,000

<<An exquisite miniature prayer-book, in a fine 18th-centurty binding.>> Created in Amsterdam in 1739 as a gift for his brother Gimpel, the scribe of this manuscript Siddur [Haim] Mikhl ben Anshel Emden, deployed a truly infinitesimal hand as he filled its pages with minuscule Hebrew characters. Clearly a cherished family heirloom, the siddur passed from Gimpel to his nephew Haim, who in turn passed it to his son-in-law, Moses ben Abraham in 1806 in London. By 1870, it was in the possession of Charles Isaacs who gifted it to his “much esteemed friend” H. Simmons. Because of its diminutive size, the scribe was able to include the shortened Torah readings for all 54 parshiyoth, let alone all standard prayers, the whole in fewer than just 60 leaves. <<A calligraphic tour-de-force.>>