Eleven silver plaques with folk art biblical scenes. [Palestine, early 20th century?].
Engraved silver; wood and plastic plaques.
Eight small engraved plaques depicting the Binding of Isaac, Rivka and Eliezer, Isaac's blessing of Jacob, Potiphar's wife and Joseph, Boaz and the reapers, the anointing of David, Solomon's judgment, and the site of the Temple; two medium-size plaques depicting Joseph leaving prison and Boaz and the reapers (a second time); a large engraved plaque depicting two scenes from the Scroll of Esther – "and Haman was fallen upon the bed whereon Esther was" and "his [Haman's] friends and Zeresh his wife" alongside the tree which Haman made for Mordechai. The silver plaques are fixed to wooden plates, except for two, which are fixed to plates made of a plastic material (one of them detached from the silver plaque).
The naïve engravings, as well as the folk-art technique by which they were made, are similar – in terms of their style, making and composition – to drawings by Moshe Sha'a Mizrachi, Yosef Zvi Geiger and Shalom Moskovitz, the "Zeigermacher". In light of these similarities, there is reason to believe that the creator of the plaques was influenced by the earliest of these artists, or worked at the same time and in the same geographical and cultural space.
Small plaques: 6X4.5 to 7X5.5 cm. Medium plaques: 6X11 cm., 8X11.5 cm. Large plaque: 13X9.5 cm. Silver plaques in good condition. Some plaques detached or partly detached from the plates on which they are fixed. Wooden plates in fair to poor condition. Blemishes and fractures.