More in ‘Sotheby’s’

Oldest Spanish Torah Scroll Sold

At Sotheby's for about $400,000
By Jesse Oxfeld | 1:00 PM Nov 25, 2009

The oldest surviving complete Torah scroll from pre-Inquisition Spain was sold at Sotheby’s yesterday to an unnamed American private collector for $398,500—not quite the half-million bucks the auction house gave as the high estimate, but impressive nonetheless. The 700-year-old scroll was put up for sale by Rabbi Yitzchok Reisman, a Torah scribe and repairman on ...

Visual Art & Design

Treasure Trove

How is it that one of the greatest collections of Hebraica ever assembled can’t find a home?
By Allison Hoffman | 7:00 AM Sep 9, 2009

Click here for an audio slideshow.
The story of one of the greatest coups in the history of book collecting began, as it happens, with a mistake. In 1956, an industrial diamond dealer and bibliophile named Jack Lunzer convinced a guard at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum to let him leaf through several early Hebrew books ...

Visual Art & Design

Don’t Tread on Me

What makes a carpet Jewish?
By Jeannie Rosenfeld | 11:03 AM Dec 29, 2008

A Kashan Pictorial Silk Rug, 1850s, depicting King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba
Jews may be “the people of the book,” but their relationship to textiles predates the book itself. In Exodus, God provides detailed instructions for the creation of a rug-like partition to be woven of turquoise, purple, and scarlet wool and linen; embellished ...