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The Haggadah is read every year by Jewsish festival of Passover, and it recounts the biblical story of the Israelites’ escape from slavery in Egypt to the ancient land of Israel. This is the most famous Haggadah of the twentieth century. It is Polish artist Arthur Szyk’s most celebrated work, called by the London Times’ literary supplement “a book worthy to be placed among the most beautiful of books that the hand of man has produced.”
With his Haggadah, Szyk put his art and talent at the service of what he considered a higher goal: speaking out against Hitler’s persecution of European Jews. The Passover story of the ancient Israelites enslaved by Egypt’s pharaoh lent itself as powerful analogy to the discriminations and violence of the 1930s.
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The Szyk Haggadah
Arthur Szyk (Polish and American, 1894–1951)
Polish
mid-20th century
1940
Medium/Technique
Bound color halftone printed reproduction after watercolor illustrations on double-vellum sheets, in three-quarter blue morocco leather and bookcloth with raised bands, gold tooling, and stamping, enclosed in three-quarter leather blue morocco leather and bookcloth clamshell box with raised bands, gold tooling, and stamping.
Dimensions
Overall (Book): 28.9 × 25.4 × 4.1 cm (11 3/8 × 10 × 1 5/8 in.)
Case: 33.3 × 29.5 × 6.4 cm (13 1/8 × 11 5/8 × 2 1/2 in.)
Case: 33.3 × 29.5 × 6.4 cm (13 1/8 × 11 5/8 × 2 1/2 in.)
Credit Line
Beal Family Foundation Fund
Accession Number2024.2569
CollectionsJudaica
ClassificationsBooks and manuscripts – Books
The Haggadah is read every year by Jewsish festival of Passover, and it recounts the biblical story of the Israelites’ escape from slavery in Egypt to the ancient land of Israel. This is the most famous Haggadah of the twentieth century. It is Polish artist Arthur Szyk’s most celebrated work, called by the London Times’ literary supplement “a book worthy to be placed among the most beautiful of books that the hand of man has produced.”
With his Haggadah, Szyk put his art and talent at the service of what he considered a higher goal: speaking out against Hitler’s persecution of European Jews. The Passover story of the ancient Israelites enslaved by Egypt’s pharaoh lent itself as powerful analogy to the discriminations and violence of the 1930s.
Catalogue Raisonné
'Arthur Szyk Preserved', edited by Irvin Ungar and Samantha Lyons, with Allison Claire Chang. (Burlingame, CA: Historicana and Lewes, UK: D Giles Limited, 2022)
DescriptionPrinted on double-vellum sheets, it features Hebrew and English calligraphic text in colored inks, and fourteen full-page illustrations, as well as embellished initials, vignettes, and border decorations. The illustrated pages and borders reproduce the original gouache watercolors Arthur Szyk made in Poland between 1934 and 1936. These were executed with a one-hair brush to render the finest details of scenes and figures. Szyk was heavily influenced by the medieval and Renaissance art of illumination, which he had studied during his training in Paris between 1921 and 1931.
Signed
Arthur Szyk and Cecil Roth
ProvenanceBetween about 1940 and 1970, possibly given by Cecil Roth (b. 1899 – d. 1970), London to Dr. Abraham I. Katsh (b. 1907 – d. 1998), New York [see note]; 1998, by inheritance to his son, Salem M. Katsh, Orient, NY; 2024, sold by Salem Katsh to the MFA. (Accession Date: TBD)
NOTE: Roth was editor of the Haggadah and a friend of Dr. Katsh.
NOTE: Roth was editor of the Haggadah and a friend of Dr. Katsh.