Art-Nouveau container in form of a graceful house,

DANISH PEWTER CHARITY CONTAINER

Copenhagen, c. 1900

With stylized depictions of doorway on front and back, the roof engraved with bands resembling tiles and set with coin slot. Danish inscriptions across lintel: “To the Society for the Care of the Sick.” Engraved sides: “Praiseworthy is he who looks after the poor” (Psalms 41:2) in Hebrew and Danish. On base, removable disc marked with makers’ initials. 4 x 2.5 inches (11 x 7 cm). This unusual charity box was created to replace the older containers of an elite Bikur Cholim Society “Tiferes Jedidim” established in Copenhagen in 1821. A limited number of some 60 or so were manufactured. Two Jewish Danish artists cooperated in the design: Siegfried Wagner (1878-1952) and Mogens Ballin (1872-1914). For another example of this fine charity container, see Mirjam Gelfer-Jorgensen, Danish Jewish Art (1999) pp. 311-13. See also EJ Vol. III: cols. 596, 612 and “Mogens Ballin’s Workstatt” in: Dekorativ Kust (Munich, April, 1902) pp. 244-50; and Weilbach’s Kunsternerleksikon (Denmark, 1947) Vol. I, pp. 59-60 (Ballin) and Vol. III, 458-59 (Wagner). About the Society Tiferes Jedidim and the replacement of their charity boxes by those created by Ballin, see Sygeplejeselskabet for det Mosaiske Troessamfund i Kobenhavn, 1821-1921, especially p. 9.