Auction 3 · Lot 46

Chamishah Chumshei Torah

Estimate: $10,000–$15,000
Hammer price: $9,500

Historical auction record. Hammer prices exclude buyer’s premium and taxes.

author

(BIBLE, Hebrew. PENTATEUCH, FIVE MEGILOTH).

printer

Tobias Foa

Place

Sabbionetta

Publication

1557

Description

PRINTED ON VELLUM. With Nikud (vowel-points). Signed on binder’s free-endpaper by the English botanist and antiquary Dawson Turner (1775-1858), book-plate of William Horatio Crawford at end. Bound by one of the three Thouvenin Brothers

references

cf. Vinograd, Sabbionetta 40 (Pentateuch only); Deinard, Atikoth Yehudah p.39; Adams (B-1260) noting vellum copy in the University Library collated - ff. 42:4 (sic, i.e. 24:4) - as the present copy

summary

A luxury copy beautifully printed entirely on vellum by Tobias Foa under the patronage of Vespasiano Gonzaga. According to Amram “No Hebrew press of the [fifteenth] century was more fortunate in the number and quality of its workmen” p. 291. Foa published in the same year differing issues of this Bible with variations relating to the presence or otherwise of Haphtaroth, Targum and Nikud. The present copy is likely Elkan Nathan Adler’s as recorded by Aron Freimann in his census of this particular Bible issue (i.e., Pentateuch and Megiloth only). See Die Hebraeische Pergamentdrucke, in: Zeitschrift fuer Hebraeische Bibliographie, vol. XV (1911) no. 77 (recording seven copies) A paper copy of this Bible (with the Targum) was sold by Kestenbaum & Company, 3rd June 1997, lot 214

ff. 180 (of 189) lacks title and ff.137-144. Trimmed, several opening leaves stained and damp-wrinkled. Fine early 19th-century French straight-grain red morocco gilt, covers with gilt vine-leaf roll enclosed by double-ruled borders, spine in six compartments with four raised bands, titled in the second compartment, the others uniformly tooled each with central black morocco inlay, signed “R.P. Thouvenin” at foot. Extremeties worn, rubbed, hinges split. Marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. 12mo

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