Adam veChava Chutz Lilith [“Adam and Eve - excluding Lilith.”]

(SHEMIRAH PLAQUE).

Italy

18th century?

Single leaf. Watercolor on vellum. In the center, a scene of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden; in the left panel, Jacob’s Dream of the Ladder, and in the right, Baby Moses Floating in the Nile. At bottom the verse from Psalms 121:8, the incantation “Kera Satan” (Destroy Satan), and the three protective angels Senoi, Sansenoi, and Sammangelof.

I. Schachar, The Feuchtwanger Collection of Judaica (1981) no. 1 (illustrated) noting three other examples; M.H. Gans, Memorbook (1977) p. 139 (illustrated)

The center panel of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden was replicated from the famous etching by the Christian convert to Judaism, Abram bar Jacob. The latter settled in Amsterdam from the Rhineland and designed magnificent title pages for Hebrew books, including the ornamentation for the sumptuous Amsterdam Haggadah of 1695. See A.M. Habermann in: C. Roth, Jewish Art (1961) pp. 486-87. This talisman was placed by the bed of expectant mothers. It was believed that Lilith wishes to stifle babies at birth; the amulet acted as a charm to ward off the female demon.