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

(HAGADAH)

for the Soncino Press

London

1930

PRINTED ENTIRELY ON VELLUM. ONE OF ONLY NINE COPIES. Designed by Albert Rutherston. Fifteen full-page illustrations and numerous head and tailpieces, all stenciled in colors under the supervision of Harold Curwen. Hebrew fonts by Enschede. English set in Baskerville. Signed by Roth and Rutherston. Original gilt-ruled dark green crushed morocco by Henry T. Wood, upper cover with gilt-tooled illustration, leather and brass clasps and hinges, all edges gilt. From the collection of Anna & Robert H. Siskin (with their book-plate).

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 (numbered II - X), this copy numbered “X.” "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 such literary and artistic luminaries as Augustus John, William Orpen, Charles Conder, Walter Sickert and Wyndham Lewis. Rutherston 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. Unlike his contemporary Arthur Szyk, 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 became closely associated with some of the greatest names of 20th-century English arts as an influential member of the highly select Bloomsbury Group. Rutherston 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.