This scroll contains one of the most finely executed series of
illustrations to be found in decorated megillot (sing. megillah).
The highly accomplished artist Wolf Leib Katz Poppers has modeled
detailed figures, scenes, and animals with delicate parallel and
cross-hatched pen strokes, creating an effect that is strikingly
similar to the copperplate engravings of contemporary books.
Positioned between a foliate border with animals at the top and a
similar one with birds at the bottom, text columns are interspersed
with eight elegant full-length characters from the Esther story.
Below each of these figures is a small vignette that chronicles the
Purim story. It is unusual that the skillfully drawn figures that
embellish this scroll are dressed in Ottoman-court clothing. The
choice of this type of dress is intriguing, and perhaps the most
cogent reason for this combination is that the scroll was produced
for a member of a small, affluent community of Turkish Jews who,
after 1718, were permitted to live and trade freely in Vienna,
while still remaining subjects of the Sultan of Turkey.
Place
Preferred form
Vienna (Austria)
Original form
[Vienna]
Other form
Vienna
Vienna, [Aryeh ben Judah Leib]
[Vienna, copied and decorated by Meshullam Zimmel of Polna]
Vienna, copied and decorated by Aaron Wolf Herlingen
Vienna, copied by Aaron Wolf Herlingen
Vienna, copied and illustrated by Aaron Wolf Herlingen [and Meschullam Simmel from Polná]
