Eric Chaim Kline, Bookseller

Eric Chaim Kline, Bookseller

The North French Hebrew Miscellany: ADD. MS. 11639. [Facsmilie] (Complete in 2 volumes)

Facsimile Editions, n/d. Limited edition. Hardcover. 4to. 1/360. Smooth, dark-brown calf with 23-carat gold-tooled edges and cover medallion (Jacob's Dream framed by a escutcheon of bees from a former owner, the Barberini family); gold and blind-tooling on spine. Companion volume bound in white vellum. Seated within leather-edged slip-case covered in hand-marbled paper and lined with Fabriano Ingres paper. Gilded-edge facsimile pages on thick, uncoated neutral pH vegetable parchment simulating the original; pages aged and individually trimmed to the size of its original. Facsimile on parchment of what is considered to be the British Library's finest illustrated Hebrew manuscript, which was created circa 1278 by Benjamin the Scribe (Binyamin Ha-Sofer) from text thought to be of Alsatian origin. Illuminations in High Gothic style of bible scenes and embellished with fanciful marginal decoration on 1494 pages by several artists (possibly including artists from St. Omer and the King's studio in Ile-de-la-Cite, Paris). Printed with offset lithography in 10 colors, with hand-applied, raised gold and silver metallic leaf on 611 pages, and special metallic powders in “burnished” gold. Comprised of 84 groups of text, including hundreds of poems, the Pentateuch and Haftarot (readings from the prophets), Song of Songs and other biblical texts; daily, Sabbath and festival prayers, including for the high holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur; Grace after Meals; Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers); assorted legal codes and formularies for agreements regarding marriage, divorce and business partnership; an arithmetical riddle; laws governing tefilin, ritual slaughter and a selection of other texts including the mezuzah; the earliest extant copy of the Hebrew version of the Book of Tobit, and the earliest known copy of Isaac de Corbeil's Sefer Mitsvot Katan. Commentary volume edited by Jeremy Schonfield covering the manuscript's creation and provenance, its illuminations and iconography, a descriptive discussion of the texts, a bibliography and indices. Facsimile in Hebrew. Companion volume in English, as issued. As new. A masterful facsimile of one of the few remaining manuscripts created in northern France, at a time when Ashkenazi Hebrew manuscript illumination was at its apex. vg. Item #29323

Price: $7,950.00

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