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Ba’al Shem Tov Hanukkah lamp with back plate modeled after elaborate Torah ark
Zhitomir, Ukraine 1860 Silver, filigree, cast, and partly gilt H: 23; W: 29 cm Received through JRSO (Jewish Restitution Successor Organization) Wiesbaden collecting point number: 3208 Accession number: B50.02.0560 ; 118/024 |
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Filigreed Hanukkah lamps like these are known as Ba’al Shem Tov lamps because they were created in the region of the Ukraine where the Ba’al Shem Tov (Rabbi Israel Ben Eliezer, founder of the Hasidic movement) lived. Fashioned with silver-thread lacework, the lamps are all made to look like elegant sofas or benches, and their candle sockets like a row of tiny oil jars on a shelf. The lamps differ from one another in terms of the decorations on the back plate, which include a row of columns, a small Torah ark, and the eastern wall of a synagogue. The back plate is sometimes surmounted by birds, or a large crown flanked by lions, or by a crowned eagle, emblem of the Russian Czar. Exhibitions: Provenance Research Online: World War II Looted Cultural Treasures, Israel Museum, Jerusalem Digital presentation of this object was made possible by: The Ridgefield Foundation, New York, in memory of Henry J. and Erna D. Leir |
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