Author Archives: BarbaraAnne

Jewish Burial Combs

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“Ritual purification before God” defines Jewish burial. The liturgy and ceremony to prepare the body is called taharah, from the Hebrew verb taher, “be pure.” The Torah first mentions it in Genesis 35:2 – “Then Jacob said… Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments.”


Photo: Jewish Museum of Prague.

Strict adherence to taharah is performed by burial societies called chevra kadisha. It is considered to be a great honor to do this and the last kindness, for you can never be thanked.


Photo: Jewish Museum of Prague.

The purification ritual has three parts: Washing the person, Showering the person, and Dressing the person. The comb plays an important role in the first and last parts.

The initial washing removes all artificial adornment. As this is done, fingernails are cut and the hair is combed. This explains why fingernail instruments are attached to the burial combs seen in the Jewish Museum of Prague.


Photo: Jewish Museum of Prague.

This rare brass comb with the Lion of Judah comes from The Creative Museum. Its inscription says, “A day of darkness, a day of mayhem comes upon us.”

However, in other parts of the world, the burial comb can have hand-engraved floral ornaments, as in this Moroccan Jewish comb from the Kajetan Fiedorowicz collection

and this silver burial comb from the Sydney Jewish Museum.

Or, the comb can just have text, such as this one from 15th Century Germany, which says, “This book was awarded to Yechezkel Rechkher of Brishköller. Laila Zecheneshel.”

Once the body is purified, the person is put in the coffin and dressed in tachrichim, white-cotton-shroud garments that symbolize the costume of Kohen Gadol, or High Priests during Israel’s First and Second Temple periods. The comb is used once again to set and dress the hair.

This piece is from the Michael Steinhart Judaica Collection. Breslau, 1868. Inscription: This is a gift of the treasured woman, madam Haya, daughter of the leader Tzvi, for use by the Hevra Kadisha.

When the person is dressed, the casket is closed.

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik wrote, “Human death, however… terminates a personality which was driven by vision and hope, which despaired, rejoiced and grieved, which lived not only in the present moment but in both retrospection and anticipation. In a word, death destroys a world.”

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For more scholarly research, please examine


Tachrichim Jewish Burial Shrouds
Kitzur Dinei Taharah
Jewish Museums of the World: Masterpieces of Judaica

The Creative Museum in Exhibition: Le Japon Amoureux

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The Museum of African and Asian Arts in Vichy, France, resides in a 19th Century residence and contains collections, which were gathered by Christian missionaries from both continents.

The Creative Museum was one of the representatives invited to share their private collection for the real-life exhibition, “Le Japon Amoureux,” whose opening was quite the event.

Idealistically, Edo Japan’s concept of love was fleeting beauty in a “Floating World,” called Ukiyo. One could escape life’s banalities and experience love as the ultimate art form.

In real life, Ukiyo developed in Yoshiwara, the red-light district of Edo, as Japanese merchants became wealthy and thrived under the Tokugawa Shogunate. The artistic skill, ornamentation, and innovation of geishas, courtesans, and kabuki actors made the Floating World a mesmerizing draw for audiences and patrons.

Documentation started with Ukiyo-e, woodblock prints, which were invented during the Edo period (1600-1827). They portrayed love stories, such as the Tale of Genji, which explores different types of affection, friendship, loyalty and family. Ukiyo-e also advertised plays and tea houses.

In kabuki theatre, men played all the roles. To play a woman, the male actor adopted an attitude, which transformed him and was called kata. When taking a hairpin out of the hair, locks were suddenly released, symbolizing the overflow of passion.

Wigs were made from human hair, using a rigid frame to create complex knots, which signified the wearer’s status. For example, a large number of ornaments in a complex hair style showed that a woman had numerous admirers. This wig uses The Creative Museum’s blonde tortoiseshell set with a Kikyô flower family crest, as well as other tortoiseshell kanzashi.

Here are some more of The Creative Museum’s Japanese pieces on display:

The viewer can see this ivory kushi and kogai set with a Japanese landscape that looks like Mt. Fuji;

this silver kogai stick with floral embellishments, coral beads, and a curved ornament that hides the link attaching the hair;

and this superb engraved-ivory tama kanzashi with a netsuke rabbit.

In the Floating World, love was only an illusion, ill-treating human beings until death. To hear The Creative Museum’s many more insightful observations, one must see the entire multimedia presentation.

They conquered the real museum world again. Time to uncork the champagne!

कंघी

For more scholarly research, please examine our Resource Library and the publications and exhibitions of The Creative Museum

Scythian Burial Mound: Чурт доллу барз, Churt Barzu Dolly

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Dotting the fields of modern-day Chechnya are Bronze Age burial mounds created by the “classical Scythians,” known to the Greeks as a militaristic, pastoral Iranic people who lived by the Northern Black Sea.


First Century BC map of the land between the Black and Caspian Seas.

In 612 BC, the Scythians conquered the Assyrian capital of Niniveh and moved East. Along the way they made funerary mounds, six of which were excavated near the village of Gojty in modern-day Chechnya.


Modern map of the land between the Black and Caspian Seas.

The most interesting mound, or kurgan, is the Чурт доллу барз, or Churt Barzu Dolly.

The tomb contained soldiers (men and women) dressed in full armor with weapons, as well as murdered female slaves, who would have come from another tribe. However, there was also a unique find.

A bone comb.

On top was a winged deer, kneeling, listening, and ready to jump to its feet.

In the National Museum, New Delhi, there is a stone palette, which shows a winged Indo-Scythian horseman riding a winged deer, and being attacked by a lion. Indo-Scythian art combines Greek and Iranian influences, and the winged deer appears in both mythologies. The Greeks saw her as Artemis.

Did an Indo-Scythian carver put the virginal huntress on the bone comb to protect the young girls, relieve them of disease, and hunt with the soldiers’ bows and arrows?

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For more scholarly research, please see our Research Library and these products:


Scythian Gold
Authentic Ancient Scythian Silver Greek Drachm Wise Men Coin of King Azes II – 35 BC Jesus Time

Lalique’s Berenice Tiara

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Although a revelation to some, Lalique designed tiaras for actresses other than Sarah Bernhardt. One of his most eloquent pieces was made for Julia Bartet, who starred in Jean Racine’s Bérénice at the Comédie-Française in 1893.

The perfect material for theatre props, Lalique used an aluminum frame, which was shaped into lotus flowers and openwork palmettes. Figures of the Greco-Roman goddess Isis punctuated five ivory cameos, depicting scenes from Bérénice’s life.

Jean Racine (1639-1699) wrote tragedies in which men fall from prosperity to disaster. But being a Jansenist Christian, his sense of fatalism and divine grace departed from Greek tragedy, where merciless Gods lead men to unforeseen doom. Instead, Racine’s tragic vision was the product of unrequited love.

In Bérénice, Racine wrote about the all-consuming love between her and Titus, son of the Roman Emperor Vespasian. When Vespasian died, it was thought Titus would finally be free to marry his true love. However the Roman population would not accept a “foreign” queen. In 79 AD, when Titus became Emperor, he caved into Roman political pressure and chose his duty over her. Although he begged her to stay, she ran away, and he continued as Emperor.


Photograph of Julia Bartet in the Role of Bérénice with Lalique’s tiara at the Musée Lambinet, Versailles.

The real Bérénice was the daughter of Herod Agrippa I, the Jewish client-king of Roman Judea, and the man who built the Second Temple of Jerusalem. Herod’s entire family were Roman citizens. During the First Roman-Jewish War, in 70 AD, Titus sacked Jerusalem and destroyed Herod’s temple — while involved in a passionate love affair with his daughter. This is the reason Titus had to choose between Rome and Bérénice.


Soldiers taking away the spoils of the Second Temple, carved on the Arch of Titus

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For further scholarly research please examine our resource library and these books:


Bérénice (French Edition)
Rene Lalique: Exceptional Jewellery, 1890-1912
The Jewish War, by Josephus

The Creative Museum Triumphs Again

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Every culture has a comb. It can symbolize a ruler’s deification, be a liturgical object for high priests, or an item that pushes the limits of an artistic movement. In Japanese culture, combs were an expression of love.

On May 4, The Creative Museum steps into the real world again by contributing items from their Japanese collection to an exhibition at the Musée d’arts d’Afrique et d’Asie called Le Japon Amoureux. Their combs will accentuate the Musée’s own collection of Japanese prints.

Having gained recognition by a second museum after En Tête à Tête at Le Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Angoulême, The Creative Museum’s collection is becoming a source for museums around the world. I am eagerly anticipating their multimedia presentation about Le Japon Amoureux. For now, I will just pick a few of my favorite Japanese combs.

This is a full modern wedding set of turquoise silk with colorful beads. It is composed of a kushi, two pairs of kanzashi and a bar placed in the bun.

This silver kanzashi celebrates a popular Japanese wedding concept: the crane for happiness and faithfulness; Minogame, a sea turtle so old, seaweed gets stuck to his tail. He symbolizes endurance and longevity; and pine branches and cherry blossoms for renewal.

This red cinnebar lacquer comb is decorated with ravens.

These two combs were made for Western clients. The first is carved in a beautiful cherry. Cranes and bamboo are painted in gold.

The second is made of shell with gold sparrows.

An Edo lacquered wood and gilt embossed comb with Takamaki-e (a technique where the lacquer is polished down to show the gold paint in high relief) shows a palanquin highlighted in black.

A moon of pierced blond tortoiseshell appears behind a dark cloud. Taisho (1912-1926). I think this shows how the Art Deco movement influenced Japanese artists.

I have left out some splendid pieces. To see those in the context of the exhibition, you can wait for the slide show or examine The Creative Museum’s entire Japanese collection.

For more scholarly research, please examine the publications of The Creative Museum.

Etruscan Hair Comb

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Before the Roman Empire, there was Ancient Italy, a compilation of cultures who absorbed each other’s ideas through trade. This map would date from 700 to 400 BC.

Greeks started colonizing Southern Italy in 800 BC, creating the province of Magna Graecia. They traded and had great cultural influence on late Villanovan culture, from which Etruscan civilization emerged. Mycenaean Greece’s Lion Gate (1300 BC) could have been a perfectly natural subject for an Etruscan artist to choose.

I believe this Etruscan ivory comb (600 to 500 BC) is a tribute to the Lions Gate at Mycenae. Using sgraffito, two decorative Greek-vector borders were scratched in: a larger pattern below the lions, and a smaller one above the tines, which might represent the gate itself. On the triangle just above the tines, circles signify a sacred emblem, the solar disc.

The comb is an example of the Hellenized world in Ancient Italy before the Roman Empire. It resides in The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.

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For more scholarly research, please examine our Resource Library and


Greek And Etruscan Jewelry, A Picture Book: The Metropolitan Museum Of Art

Keter Torah: Silver Torah Finials and Crowns

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Early rabbinical texts disclaim the Hellenistic notion that a crown, or keter endowed its wearer with divine and immortal life. Instead, the keter became a symbol for 3 covenants with God: keter malkhut, crown of kingship, given to David for conquering the Ammonite capital of Rabbah; keter kenunah, the priesthood, given to the descendants of Moses’ brother Aaron; and keter torah, the revelation to Moses at Mount Sinai, the crown of God.


Keter Torah, Assayag Synagogue by David R. Crowles (Tangier, Morocco 2002)

The keter torah and the Ten Commandments tablets may also be accompanied by two lions, symbolizing Moses and Aaron, as in this closeup of a crown from Odessa.

In Eastern Europe’s Galicia, this keter’s inscription refers to Deuteronomy 32:11, “As an eagle stirs up her nest, broods over her young…” The animals on the crown’s base represent those that would be sacrificed at the Temple. This silver folk-art crown was made during the 18th- to 19th Centuries and is part of the Michael Steinhardt Judaica Collection. I find it especially interesting because the double-headed eagle with a crown in the middle is also the Russian coat of arms.

These flat finials come from Afghanistan, 1978, and are one of three sets to go on top the Afghani Torah case. The custom of calling finials keter torah is also practiced in Eastern Persia, where most Afghan Jews came from. The ornaments reside in the Center for Jewish Art in Jerusalem.

In the Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme, a wooden box with two sets of finials on top, called a tik is preserved from a Sephardic synagogue during the Ottoman Empire, c. 1860.

On April 29, 2013, Sotheby’s auctioned this Venitian torah crown with two finials, c. 1730. From the Michael Steinhardt collection, it sold for $437,000. I am sure you can imagine how such a heavy crown with bells ringing on top of the torah case added drama to the service.

In 17th Century Poland and Ukraine, mysticism expressed in kabbalah founded different forms of Hasidic Judaism. The tree of life, or sephirot, comes from kabbalah. So does devekut, a mystical trance-state where one clings to God. Rebbe Nachman of Breslov (1772–1810) combined kabbalah and torah scholarship, making the mind the central route to the heart. At the top of the sephirot is the keter. It symbolizes the most hidden of all hidden things, incomprehensible to man.

This torah crown comes from Poland, c. 1840. It was sold by Skinner’s for $65,174.

And in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Hasidic Judaism is vibrantly alive.

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For more scholarly research, please examine


Crowning Glory: Silver Torah Ornaments of the Jewish Museum, New York
Hasidism and the Jewish Enlightenment: Their Confrontation in Galicia and Poland in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century
Crown of Aleppo: The Mystery of the Oldest Hebrew Bible Codex

Chinese Hair Pins and Desolate, Derelict Pain

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I saw. I gasped. I wanted — so badly, silent screams came from secret parts of my body.

In 1644, the Aisin-Goro clan of the Tungusic Jurchen people from Manchuria (now Northeast China) conquered the Han Chinese in the South. The Ming Dynasty gave way to the Qing Dynasty. These are Qing Dynasty silver hair pins made during the reign of the Guangxu emperor Aisin-Gioro Zaitian (1875 – 1908). He was the Dynasty’s 11th and penultimate emperor.

Beautifully preserved enamel encases coral drops. Hand-crafted butterflies and flowers punctuate the chains. The pair is in original condition.

The auction on E-bay started at $0.99. I watched as the price climbed to $300, 18 hours before auction end: 26 bids. I knew it was going to go, and I couldn’t enter that shock-and-awe $1000 snipe bid to win.

But I was wrong. Someone DID put in that nuclear snipe bid, and they lost! The hair pins sold for $1025 on March 25, 2013, to the 37th bidder. Congratulations.

कंघी

For more scholarly research, please examine the Creative Museum’s Asian comb exhibition, Gina Hellweger’s first and second Chinese hair ornament collections,

this 1860 photograph of women in Guangzhou wearing hair ornaments, contributed by Alain Truong Trong Nghia

and these books:


Kingfisher Blue: Treasures of an Ancient Chinese Art
The Comb: Its History and Development
Ethnic Jewellery and Adornment

The Vienna Secession, Wiener Werkstätte, and H.K. Haege

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Unsatisfied with the conservative restraints of the Vienna Künstlerhaus, Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Josef Hoffmann, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Max Kurzweil, and others formed the Vienna Secession in 1897. They wanted to break free of society’s intoxication with imitating historical styles, as in the Victorian Era’s Egyptian Revival. Their headquarter’s innovative architectural design featured three gorgons by Othmar Schimkowitz above the door.

The Secession also brought French Impressionism to the Viennese public, and Josef Hoffman dedicated an event to Beethoven. Klimt contributed the Beethoven Frieze.

However, in addition to Art Nouveau / Jugendstil, there was also the British Arts and Crafts Movement. In Vienna, industrialist Fritz Wärndorfer funded its equivalent, the Wiener Werkstätte with Josef Hoffman and Koloman Moser.

Revolting against the idea of mass-produced junk vomited out by the Industrial Revolution, they hand-crafted jewelry that blurred the line between sculpture and ornament. Hair combs and hats were among the offerings.

The designs above were made by Dagobert Peche. He loved to portray natural forms in a complex and whimsical way. Combining coral, ivory and gold, he punctuated natural forms with geometric accents.

Koloman Moser’s student Mela Koehler included whimsical hats in her fashion illustration, having joined the Wiener Werkstätte in 1909.

Many jewelers created pieces in the Wiener Werkstätte style. Among them was German jeweler H. K. Haege in 1920. He created this comb of at least 114 handmade silver parts to express the delicacy of a floral basket. The high grade silver highlighted his extraordinary repoussé workmanship.

It is selling at The Tadema Gallery in the £5000-10,000 range.

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For more scholarly research, please examine


Wiener Werkstatte: 1903-1932

The Collection Göring

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Hermann Göring’s art collection numbered 4200 items, most of which he kept at Carinhall, his country estate near Berlin. They included paintings, sculptures, furniture, and this magnificent platinum tiara, with 32 carats of diamonds and 8 emerald cabochons. Two side leaves with buds lead to the center spray.

Another diamond tiara with stars outlined by hollow galleries can be seen as Göring escorts his wife Emmy to a ball.

It was a happy marriage. Emmy and daughter Edda gave Hermann many gifts with loving inscriptions. Storage-inventory-number 466/96 at the Pinakothek der Moderne museum in Munich is a gold and diamond cigarette case, engraved with the words, “Filled with happiness and pride, we congratulate you on your appointment as ‘Field Marshall.’ With our deepest love, Emmy and Edda.”

Edda can also be seen here at Carinhall, held by her mother just after her Christening. A beautiful painting hangs in the background.

It is hard to determine where these items came from. The German government has allocated €2 million a year to fund the “Working Group for the Research and Study of Provenance.” Their job is to sift through 20,000 items, which are currently being kept in museum storage vaults. There are 4 employees, who have launched 84 projects. Germany has 6300 museums.

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For more scholarly research, please examine


Hermann Goring and the Nazi Art Collection: The Looting of Europe’s Art Treasures and Their Dispersal After World War II