A New Critical Edition with English Translation, Introduction, and Notes, Literary, Historical, and Archeological, by Cecil Roth. Hebrew text and English translation face `a face

(HAGADAH)

for the Soncino Press

London

1930

PRINTED ENTIRELY ON VELLUM. ONE OF ONLY NINE COPIES Designed by Albert Rutherston. lllustrations and numerous head and tailpieces, all stencilled in colors under the supervision of Harold Curwen. Hebrew fonts by Enschede. English set in Baskerville. Original gilt-ruled green crushed morocco by Henry T. Wood, upper cover with gilt-tooled illustration

Yaari 2149; not in Yudlov

A Beautifully Designed Hagadah by Albert Daniel Rutherston. Sumptuously Produced at the Curwen Press. The Vellum Copy. From an overall edition of 110 copies, this is one of only nine copies produced on vellum - the present copy being the single copy not issued for sale and marked "the Publisher's copy." "In issuing this new edition of the Haggadah, the publishers have aimed at giving to this time-honoured liturgy a setting of consummate beauty, a fitting testimony to the almost filial affection in which it is held by the Jewish people" (Publisher's Note, by J. Davidson). The Anglo-Jewish artist Albert Rutherston (1881-1953), younger brother of Willliam Rothenstein, studied at the Slade School of Fine Art. His friends came to include Augustus John, William Orpen, Charles Conder, Walter Sickert and Wyndham Lewis. Rutherson began his teaching career at the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, and went on to become Ruskin Master of Drawing at Oxford (1929-49). In 1936 he was one of the founder members of the Pottery Group, along with Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, Paul Nash, Ben Nicholson and Graham Sutherland EXTRA NOTE (NOT INCLUDED IN THE CATALOGUE): Beyond what is already written in the catalogue, at your request, I am enclosing here some additional comments about the sumptuous Passover Hagadah to be sold in the auction on Thursday - that is, Lot number 180. This Hagadah was designed by Albert Rutherston (1881-1953). Unlike his contemporary Arthur Szyk in Paris (and later America) - who of course designed an equally celebrated Hagadah on vellum, Rutherston and his art did not remain self-enclosed within the confines of the Jewish experience. Rutherston took his Jewish artistic talents to the broader world, and, as I wrote in the auction-catalogue, became closely associated with some of the greatest names of 20th-century English arts as an influential member of the highly select Bloomsbury Group. The Bloomsbury Group were a group of writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists who maintained a series of immensely creative salons in various sites in early to mid 20th-century England. Their work deeply influenced literature, aesthetics, criticism, and economics as well as modern attitudes towards pacifism, feminism and sexuality. Its best known members were Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster and Lytton Strachey. Rutherston took the best of his artistic talents and was treated as an equal by these giants of English literature and the arts - while still preserving his Jewish identity, as exemplified by this extravagantly designed Passover Hagadah. In my 25 years of organizing Judaica auctions, this is the very first time I have come across a copy of the Rutherston Hagadah on vellum - it is that rare! - And this copy of course, is the Publisher's own. Let me know if I can advise you further.