Scroll - Blog Posts

Scrolling down and only seeing the second sticky note before scrolling back up was perfect

“The Traveller” | 2016 132 x 48 inches | black ink, acrylic, charcoal, paper roll, candles, headphones, mp3 player with sound accompaniment 

2020 Graduation pixel art📜🎓

Esther Scroll, Ancona, early 18th century

Handwritten text, unfinished decorated cut-away parchment Parchment, 8 membranes, 39 text columns,  23x458 cm Carved wooden roller Gift of Mrs. Erna Ascoli in memory of her husband U. Nahon Museum of Italian Jewish Art ON 0495

This scroll is a beautiful example of the particular style of decoration that flourished in the Italian towns of Ancona and Lugo in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Artists in these towns specialized in a laborious technique whereby the parchment was cut away to create an intricately patterned frame for the text that reminds us of the beautiful lace used in fashions of that period. This elaborate technique was employed to adorn megillot, ketubbot and a variety of Judaica objects. Only a few such Italian cut-out parchment scrolls remain today.

Esther Scroll; dedicated in honor of Ezra Somekh; Kolkata, India; 19th–20th Century.

Esther scrolls in elaborate cases, recounting the Purim story of the salvation of the Jews in the Persian Empire, were often given as betrothal gifts and passed on from one generation to the next as veritable family heirlooms. This scroll from Kolkata invokes the biblical blessing of Joseph to protect the groom, Ezra Somekh.