Exhibition | Hercules: Hero and Anti-Hero
Exhibition photo with a mid-19th-century plaster cast after Balthasar Permoser’s ‘Saxon Hercules’. As noted on the SKD’s Instagram account, “The original crowned the Wall Pavilion of the Dresden Zwinger from 1718 to 1945, symbolising its patron, Augustus the Strong, with his astonishing physical strength and the Herculean efforts he undertook every day as the Saxon-Polish ruler. Where Hercules dwells with the vault of heaven, the Garden of the Hesperides cannot be far away. And so Permoser’s Hercules gazed upon the orange trees in the Zwinger courtyard, which bore the apples of the Hesperides, as it were, and promised Saxony a golden age.”
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
From the press release for the exhibition:
Hercules: Hero and Anti-Hero
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Zwinger, Dresden, 22 November 2025 — 28 June 2026
Hercules (‘Heracles’ in Greek), the best-known hero of classical antiquity, is one of the most enduring and popular mythical figures anywhere in the world. His name is universally known, and the phrase ‘a Herculean task’ is an everyday expression for anything requiring extraordinary strength and effort.
The Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (Dresden State Art Collections, SKD) is dedicating an exhibition to this demigod in the Winckelmann Forum of the Semper Gallery of the Zwinger. With Hercules: Hero and Anti-Hero, the Skulpturensammlung bis 1800 (Sculpture Collection up to 1800) and the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister (Old Masters Picture Gallery) present a wide range of depictions of this mythological character. Featuring 135 objects, including top-quality sculptures, paintings, prints, coins, armour, and works of the goldsmith’s art, the exhibition explores the question of why Hercules has been such a fascinating figure for millennia and continues to be so today—one need only think, for example, of some of the major films of recent years.
As the son of the supreme deity Zeus and the Theban queen Alcmene, Hercules was a demigod—with superhuman strength and human flaws. His popularity was revived during the Renaissance. In Rome, dozens of large-scale Hercules statues were already known in the sixteenth century, and these had a huge influence on early modern art. The exhibition showcases works of art from classical antiquity to the neoclassical period, with some glimpses into the present day. Alongside objects from the rich holdings of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, there are prestigious loans from such eminent institutions as the Vatican Museums in Rome, the Prado in Madrid, the Louvre in Paris, and the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen.
In a prologue and five chapters, the exhibition explores the famous ‘Labours of Hercules’, his relationships with women, his anti-heroic escapades, and his role as a model of virtue for rulers such as Alexander the Great and August the Strong. Balthasar Permoser’s colossal Saxon Hercules, created for the Rampart Pavilion of the Dresden Zwinger, bears witness to this.
Hercules was evidently not only strong and virtuous. In some situations, he behaved dishonourably, succumbed to vice, or committed cruel injustices, even against his own children. He often fought against evil for the good of humanity, but he was also a murderer, rapist, drunkard, and thief. Through significant works of art and an extensive accompanying programme, the exhibition encourages reflection on the role of heroism in history and its relevance in our society today. Particular attention is paid to the extraordinary narrative richness of the myth.
Videos telling eight of the stories about Hercules have been created specially for the exhibition. Dresden-born actor Martin Brambach—known for his role as Chief Inspector Peter Michael Schnabel in the television series Tatort—relates important and amusing episodes from the life of the hero and anti-hero. A multimedia guide is available free of charge.
Holger Jacob-Friesen, ed., Herkules: Held und Antiheld (Dresden: Sandstein Kultur, 2025), 200 pages, ISBN: 978-3954988945, €38.
Exhibition | French Enlightenment: From the Court of Versailles to Agen
Now on view at the Musée des Beaux Arts in Agen:
Lumières françaises, de la cour de Versailles à Agen
Église des Jacobins, Musée des Beaux Arts d’Agen, 5 December 2025 — 8 March 2026
Curated by Adrien Enfedaque
Six ans après l’exposition Goya, génie d’avant-garde. Le maître et son école, la Ville d’Agen s’engage dans une nouvelle exposition d’envergure, du 5 décembre 2025 au 8 mars 2026. L’église des Jacobins, espace du musée des Beaux-Arts, offrira le récit du bouillonnement qui accompagna la diffusion des idées des Lumières dans l’Agenais. Labellisée « Exposition d’intérêt national », cette nouvelle exposition est un atout pour l’attractivité et le rayonnement du territoire agenais. L’objectif de fréquentation est fixé à 30,000 visiteurs.
Le récit du siècle des Lumières en Agenais
Agen et sa région connaissent au XVIIIe siècle une période de prospérité économique et culturelle. L’exil agenais du duc d’Aiguillon, ministre des Affaires étrangères du roi Louis XV et ami de Madame de Pompadour et de Madame Du Barry, joue un rôle prépondérant. L’exposition mettra tout particulièrement en valeur sa collection de peintures, conservée au musée, et notamment le Portrait de Madame Du Barry en Flore, peint par François Hubert Drouais en 1773–74, icône du portrait féminin du XVIIIe siècle publiée dans de nombreuses biographies consacrées à la favorite.
L’exposition abordera plusieurs grandes thématiques:
• Le pouvoir au XVIIIe siècle : politique, religieux et économique.
• L’art de vivre de la cour de Versailles à Aiguillon.
• Le mécénat artistique au XVIIIe siècle à travers les figures de Madame Du Barry et du duc d’Aiguillon.
• Les constructions du XVIIIe siècle et leur rôle dans l’identité du bâti de l’Agenais.
• Les idées des Lumières et l’influence des élites d’Agen, avec des coups de projecteur sur Montesquieu et la Société académique d’Agen, créée en 1776.
Des prêts prestigieux en provenance de grandes institutions telles que le château de Versailles, le musée du Louvre ou encore la Bibliothèque nationale de France viendront compléter le fonds du musée d’Agen et seront réunis dans l’écrin agenais que constitue l’église des Jacobins. Plus de 250 œuvres seront présentées au sein d’une scénographie immersive qui permettra de se plonger dans la vie à la cour et le siècle des Lumières. Ambitieuse et accessible, l’exposition déploiera un parcours adapté aux familles. Un riche programme d’animations sera également proposé.
Print Quarterly, December 2025
Anonymous artist, Magdalen’s Hospital, or Public Laundry for Washing Blackmoores White, 1758, etching, trimmed within the platemark, 232 × 307 mm (Oxford, Ashmolean Museum).
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
The long eighteenth century in the latest issue of Print Quarterly:
Print Quarterly 42.4 (December 2025)
a r t i c l e s
• Xanthe Brooke, “Spaignolet’s Drawing Book: An Album with Ribera Prints at Knowsley Hall,” pp. 379–89. This article focuses on an unpublished album containing 28 prints mainly by or after Jusepe de Ribera (1591–1652). Brooke seeks to identify the sources and publishers of each impression, explores how the Earl of Derby used the album, and traces the growing taste for Ribera’s work among English collectors in the late seventeenth and the first decades of the eighteenth century.
Anonymous artist, The New and Entertaining Game of the Goose, ca. 1759–87, woodcut, 470 × 360 mm (London: British Library, Creed Collection volume 8).
• Emma Boyd, “The Advent of the Magdalen Hospital: A Rare Satirical Print,” pp. 390–401. This article examines an anonymous etching in the Ashmolean Museum depicting the Magdalen Hospital, a charity for ‘penitent prostitutes’. The author discusses the print’s satirical commentary in relation to the charity’s controversial formation and the debates surrounding it. She also examines the print’s authorship within the context of other satirical prints and depictions of London street figures.
• Susan Sloman, “Gainsborough’s Cottage Belonging to Philip Thicknesse near Landguard Fort,” pp. 426–31. This short article contextualises an early etching by Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) from the 1750s, which the author proposes may have served as a subscription ticket for the engraving Landguard Fort, published in August 1754 by Thomas Major (1719–1799). The author also suggests that a painting by Gainsborough long assumed lost never existed.
• Felicity Myrone and Adrian Seville, “Two Unreported Games of the Goose in the Creed Collection in the British Library,” pp. 432–36. This short article describes two unknown examples of the Game of the Goose, one in printed form and the other in manuscript form. The provenance from the collection of London printseller Giles Creed (1798–1858), who specialized in ‘the history of ancient and modern inns, taverns, and coffee-houses’, is briefly traced.
n o t e s a n d r e v i e w s
Anonymous artist, published by Matthew and Mary Darly, Tight Lacing, or, Hold Fast Behind, 1 March 1777, etching and engraving, 351 × 247 mm (Farmington, CT: Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University).
• Andaleeb Badiee Banta, Review of Cristina Martinez and Cynthia Roman, Female Printmakers, Printsellers, and Print Publishers in the Eighteenth Century: The Imprint of Women, c. 1700–1830 (Cambridge University Press, 2024), pp. 445–47.
• Jean Michel Massing, Review of Anna Lafont, L’art et la race: L’Africain (tout) contre l’œil des Lumières (Les presses du réel, 2019), pp. 447–48.
• Einav Rabinovitch-Fox, Review of Elizabeth Gernerd, The Modern Venus: Dress, Underwear, and Accessories in the Late 18th-Century Atlantic World (Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2024), pp. 448–49.
• Mathilde Semal, Review of Rolf Reichardt, Éventails symboliques de la Révolution. Sources iconographiques et relations intermédiales (Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2024), pp. 450–52.
• Robert Felfe, Review of Matthew Zucker and Pia Östlund, Capturing Nature: 150 Years of Nature Printing (Princeton Architectural Press, 2022), pp. 452–54.
• Sarah Thompson, Review of Timothy Clark, ed., Late Hokusai: Society, Thought, Technique, Legacy (British Museum, 2023), pp. 479–83.
Exhibition | Landscapes by British Women Artists, 1760–1860
Opening soon at The Courtauld:
A View of One’s Own: Landscapes by British Women Artists, 1760–1860
The Courtauld Gallery, London, 28 January — 20 May 2026
Curated by Rachel Sloan
A View of One’s Own showcases landscape drawings and watercolours by British women artists working between 1760 and 1860 whose work represents a growing area of The Courtauld’s collection. These artists range from highly accomplished amateurs to those ambitious for more formal recognition. They have remained mostly unknown, and their works largely unpublished.
When the Royal Academy was founded in 1768, its members included two women; yet there would not be another female academician until Dame Laura Knight was elected in 1936. Despite this institutional exclusion, women artists in Britain continued to train, practice, and exhibit during this period, particularly in the field of landscape watercolours. This exhibition and its accompanying catalogue shed new light on these artists, working within a heavily male-dominated era in the arts. Some of the artists achieved recognition during their lifetimes while others’ work remained private. The ten artists featured include Harriet Lister and Lady Mary Lowther, who were among the first to depict the Lake District; Amelia Long, Lady Farnborough, one of the first British artists to travel to France following the Napoleonic Wars; and Elizabeth Batty, whose works appearing in the show were rediscovered only a few years ago.
Artists: Harriet Lister, Mary Lowther, Mary Mitford, Elizabeth Susan Percy, Mary Smirke, Eliza Gore; Fanny Blake, Amelia Long, Elizabeth Batty, and Richenda Gurney.
Rachel Sloan, ed., A View of One’s Own: Landscapes by British Women Artists, 1760–1860 (London: Paul Holberton Publishing, 2026), 72 pages, ISBN: 978-1913645977, £20. With contributions by Susan Owens, Rachel Sloan, and Paris Spies-Gans.
Rachel Sloan is Associate Curator for Works on Paper at The Courtauld Gallery. Paris A. Spies-Gans is a historian and art historian, with a focus on gender and culture in Britain and France during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries; she is currently a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. Susan Owens, formerly Curator of Paintings at the V&A, is an independent scholar; she has published widely on 19th-century British art and culture and has a particular interest in drawing and landscape.
Exhibition | The Barber in London
Now on view at The Courtauld:
The Barber in London: Highlights from a Remarkable Collection
The Courtauld Gallery, London, 23 May 2025 — 28 Jun 2026
Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Portrait of Countess Golovine, ca. 1800, oil on canvas, 84 × 67 cm (The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, 80.1).
A selection of exceptional paintings from the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham, is on view at The Courtauld Gallery for an extended display from May 2025, while the Barber undergoes a major refurbishment project. The Barber Institute of Fine Arts was founded as a university gallery in 1932, the same year as The Courtauld Institute of Art and its collection. Both were intended to encourage the study and public appreciation of art. Today, the Barber and The Courtauld Gallery are home to two of the finest collections of European art in the country.
Highlights from the collection at the Barber include important works such as Frans Hals’s Portrait of a Man Holding a Skull (c. 1610–14), Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun’s Portrait of Countess Golovina (1797–1800), Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s The Blue Bower (1865), and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s Woman in a Garden (1890). In addition, a handful of paintings with strong links to The Courtauld’s own collection will be embedded in the permanent collection displays, among them Joshua Reynolds’s monumental double portrait Maria Marow Gideon and Her Brother William (1786–87).
Exhibition | A Grand Chorus: The Power of Music
Left: Therese Schwartze, A Choir of Foundling Girls, ca. 1910 (London: Foundling Museum). Center: Mikhail Karikis, We Are Together Because, 2025, at Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian (Photo by Pedro Pina), Right: Foundling Hospital, The Chapel, detail, Microcosm of London, pl. 37, published 1808, hand-colored etching and aquatint (London: Foundling Museum).
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
Originally associated with Easter more than Christmas, Handel’s Messiah did have its American premier on 25 December in 1818 at Boston’s Boylston Hall. This exhibition at The Foundling unpacks the legacy of its triumphal ‘Hallelujah Chorus’:
A Grand Chorus: The Power of Music
Foundling Museum, London, 2 October 2025 — 29 March 2026
Explore the life-affirming power of music through the lens of Handel’s iconic ‘Hallelujah Chorus’.
Looking at the exhilarating experience and enduring impact of the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ in the past and present, A Grand Chorus explores, across all four floors of the Museum, the profound effect that music can have on both listeners and performers, encouraging visitors to think about their own physical and emotional connections with music, either through encounters with the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ or reflecting on music that has transformed and enriched their own lives.
A Grand Chorus brings together musical scores, librettos, and musical instruments as well as paintings, photographs, audio, video, personal testimony, and other archival material spanning three centuries. The exhibition takes a fresh look at the origins and enduring popularity of the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’, as well as reflecting on the impact of music on the lives of former Foundlings and care-experienced individuals. Originally composed as part of his famous Messiah oratorio, Handel later incorporated the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ into an anthem he created specially for the Foundling Hospital that premiered in 1749 to help raise money for the charitable institution.
The exhibition also showcases a major sound and video installation by Mikhail Karikis, We Are Together Because… (2025), the first time the work has been presented in the UK. Featuring a powerful anthem for a new generation, Karikis’s work can be imagined as a contemporary counterpart to the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’.
More information is available here»
Installation | Revolution!
Paul Revere Jr., after Henry Pelham, The Boston Massacre, or, The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street, Boston on 5 March 1770 by a party of the 29th Regiment, detail, 1770, hand-colored engraving and etching, second state, sheet: 11 × 9.5 inches (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. Russell Sage, 1910, 10.125.103).
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
Opening soon at The Met:
Revolution!
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 19 January — 7 September 2026
Curated by Sylvia Yount, Constance McPhee, and Wolf Burchard
This special installation marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the founding document of the United States of America. Works drawn from many different areas of The Met offer a wide view of the roots, course, and aftermath of the Revolutionary War (1775–1783)—from early conflicts between colonists and Indigenous peoples and the 1765 Stamp Act imposed by the British government on its North American colonies to George Washington’s voluntary retirement, in 1797, from his two-term presidency.
Rarely seen prints reveal the transatlantic circulation of news about the struggle for independence during a fractious political era. This window into the era’s print culture highlights the global dimensions of the rebellion, the contested ideas about liberty that shaped it, and its consequential outcomes. Also on view are American and European works of art that depict a range of significant individuals. These include iconic contributors to the Declaration of Independence John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson; patriots and presidents such as Paul Revere and George Washington; the Wampanoag chief Metacomet, whose conflicts with early British colonists laid the groundwork for revolution; Mohawk leader Thayendanegea, who allied with the British in an effort to retain Indigenous sovereignty; and African American poet Phillis Wheatley, who raised her voice against an expansive tyranny in her call for emancipation. Together, these artworks acknowledge multiple complex and intertwined histories that continue to resonate in the United States and beyond, some two and half centuries later.
Revolution! is curated by Sylvia Yount, Lawrence A. Fleischman Curator in Charge of the American Wing; Constance McPhee, Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints; and Wolf Burchard, Curator, Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts.
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
With this additional information from the press release:
The American Wing will also feature in its Alexandria Ballroom (Gallery 719), an historical interior focused on George Washington and his complex legacy—from fall 2025 through early August 2026—with artist Titus Kaphar’s 2016 ‘tar’ portraits of Ona Judge and William Lee, both enslaved members of the Washington family’s households, on loan from private collections. In addition, from March through summer 2026, a recent acquisition by Carla Hemlock (Mohawk) will be on view in dialogue with Rembrandt Peale’s portrait of Washington in the foyer of the Art of Native America installation (Gallery 746 South).
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
The Art of the American Revolution: A Conversation with Ken Burns and Sarah Botstein
Thursday, 29 January 2026, 6pm
The Museum will present a panel discussion on the “Art of Revolution” with filmmakers Ken Burns and Sarah Botstein, co-directors with David Schmidt of their new documentary, The American Revolution; historians Philip Deloria and Jane Kamensky; and art historian Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, along with a screening of excerpts from the PBS series, produced exclusively for The Met, highlighting the creative process of visual storytelling. The conversation will provide an opportunity to reflect on the continued relevance of historical imagery and the power of art to explore the varied stories of the country’s founding.
Exhibition | Ringleaders of Rebellion: Charleston in Revolt, 1775–1783
Cartridge Box, one of the best-preserved examples of its kind from the Revolutionary War
(Charleston Museum)
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
From the press release for the exhibition:
Ringleaders of Rebellion: Charleston in Revolt, 1775–1783
Charleston Museum, 31 January — 20 September 2026
To mark 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the Charleston Museum will present a special exhibition in the Historic Textiles Gallery; Ringleaders of Rebellion: Charleston in Revolt, 1775–1783 provides an in-depth overview of the Lowcountry’s role in the Revolutionary War, featuring objects from the Museum’s collections alongside special pieces on loan during certain months of the display.
Shoes that belonged to Eliza Lucas Pinckney (Charleston Museum).
Among the latter will be a broadside of the Declaration of Independence, one of the first copies of the document printed in Charleston after news of its adoption reached the city in August 1776. The document, loaned from the Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History, will be shown May 29 to August 30. Another remarkable piece is the logbook of the Royal Navy’s HMS Bristol, the flagship of Commodore Peter Parker during the Battle of Sullivan’s Island. This record of the ship’s daily activities (on view from June 15 to September 20) comes from the Royal Museums of Greenwich and will be a key addition to the exhibition as 2026 also represents the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Sullivan’s Island. In addition, the show will feature archaeological pieces from battlefields around the state including Camden, Ninety Six, Fort Motte, and Fort Watson. From May 23 to July 26, the Museum will present Eliza Lucas Pinckney’s silk gown, along with her recently conserved shoes and sash (supported by the fundraising efforts of the Eliza Lucas Pinckney chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution).
Several new acquisitions will also be featured, including a ‘Brown Bess’ musket (the primary infantry weapon of the British army during the Revolutionary War), an officer’s camp bed from the era, a pair of period leather horseman’s breeches, and a William Lee bracket clock. William Lee, a Charleston clockmaker, was one of the paroled prisoners whom the British exiled to St. Augustine, Florida in 1780 for clandestinely continuing rebellious activities. British officers referred to them as the “Ringleaders of Rebellion.”
Funding for the Ringleaders exhibit was made available by SC250, the Therblig Foundation, the Post and Courier Foundation, and Henry and Sylvia Yaschik Foundation.
Exhibition | Jewish Worlds Illuminated: Hebrew Manuscripts
Now on view at The Grolier Club:
Jewish Worlds Illuminated: A Treasury of
Hebrew Manuscripts from the Jewish Theological Seminary Library
The Grolier Club, New York, 17 September — 27 December 2025
Grace after Meals, Daily Blessings with Shema and Prayers for Bedtime; scribe: Aaron Wolff Herlingen of Gewitsch, Vienna, 1724 (New York: JTS MS 8232).
Since the time of the Babylonian Exile in the early sixth century BCE, the vast majority of the world’s Jews have lived in diasporas—scattered across many lands, cultures, and languages. In these communities, Jewish wisdom and creativity often found their fullest expression in the creation of books. Manuscripts became vessels of memory, imagination, and identity, preserving the richness of Jewish life from Antiquity into modern times. Within their pages are the voices of scholars and poets, scribes, and artists, which afford us a window into the everyday experiences of Jews across the globe. The Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, established in New York in 1886, houses one of the world’s largest and most important collections of Hebrew manuscripts and printed books.
With items dating as far back as the ninth century and originating from lands as varied as Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Turkey, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Morocco, and Yemen, the collection represents more than ten centuries of Jewish scholarship, spanning the spectrum of Bible, liturgy, rabbinics, kabbalah, science, literature, and philosophy. Jewish Worlds Illuminated is the most extensive display ever of the JTS Library’s Hebrew manuscript treasures and is the first exhibition at the Grolier Club devoted exclusively to Jewish books. Each case presents scribal and artistic masterpieces from a particular region or period, inviting you to enter a historical Jewish setting and consider it alongside others. The works displayed stand as enduring testimony to Jewish intellectual, cultural, and artistic life across centuries and continents.
Visit the exhibition online»
Exhibition | Art of Faith from the Jewish Museum, New York
Torah Pointer, 18th century, coral and silver
(New York: Jewish Museum)
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
From the press release for the exhibition:
Guests of Honor: Art of Faith from the Jewish Museum, New York
Detroit Institute of Arts, 5 December 2025 — 3 January 2027
The Detroit Institute of Arts presents a special exhibition in partnership with the Jewish Museum in New York, highlighting the heritage, traditions, and vibrancy of thriving Jewish communities from Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Guests of Honor: Art of Faith includes 13 exceptional ceremonial objects, dating from the 1400s to the 1900s, that illustrate connections across faith traditions.
With the works placed throughout the museum, this DIA Guests of Honor presentation offers a rare opportunity to experience exquisite objects of Jewish ceremonial art alongside pieces produced for Christian and Islamic patrons in the same period. These diverse works both demonstrate the specificity of Jewish communities, their holidays and rituals and mutual influence of craftspeople, artists, and patrons across faiths. This loan from New York’s Jewish Museum brings a culturally specific set of artworks into conversation with DIA’s encyclopedic collections.
Giovanni Maria Ronchi (active in Ferrara, 1764–1801), Torah Crown, 1764–77, silver, partial gilt (NY: The Jewish Museum, F3688).
“The Detroit Institute of Arts is deeply honored to collaborate with the Jewish Museum to bring these extraordinary Jewish ceremonial artworks to our community,” said Detroit Institute of Arts Director Salvador Salort-Pons. “This partnership represents more than a loan of objects; it is a testament to the power of cultural institutions working together to preserve and share the richness of Jewish history as well as artistic and spiritual life. Through this exhibition, we hope to foster greater understanding and appreciation for Jewish history and culture, while strengthening the bonds between our institutions and communities.”
Among the items are several that adorn Torah scrolls, the holiest text of Judaism. These objects reflect both Jewish practice as well as the artistic styles of their places of production. The oldest of the works on view include a silver Torah shield from the 1660s, one of the earliest surviving pieces of Jewish ceremonial art from Nuremburg, Germany. This specific shield is decorated with unicorns, lions, and foliage, echoing styles popular in German art across religious communities in the period. The exhibition also includes three sets of Torah finials (ornamental metal objects placed atop the wooden rollers of a Torah scroll) featuring small bells to announce the movement of the holy text during congregational processions. These three sets of Torah finials come from distinct Jewish communities—one was crafted in London by the noted silversmith Solomon Hougham in the 1700s, another made in Iran a century later, and the third made in Morocco in the early 1900s—and reflect how Jewish communities across the world ornament the Torah in different ways. The exhibition also includes two silver Torah crowns used to beautify the Torah scroll: one from the late 1700s made in Ferrara, Italy, an important center of Jewish life since the 1100s; and the other made in North Africa in 1898–99.
Hanukkah Lamp, Northern Rhineland, late 17th or early 18th century, cast copper alloy, 24 × 22 × 11 inches (NY: Jewish Museum, F5591).
Alongside objects centering the Torah in Jewish ceremonial life are works connected to Jewish holidays and festivals. These works also reflect the broader context in which they were made and first used. An Eastern European spice container (used during the Havdalah ceremony at the end of the Jewish Sabbath) resembles the form of a Gothic clock tower, echoing the architecture of the region. A silver container for an etrog (a fruit used to celebrate the fall holiday of Sukkot) made in the Ottoman Empire in the late 1800s is adorned with designs similar to Islamic silver from the same time and place. Two Hanukkah lamps, one from northern Germany and one from Ottoman Baghdad, share characteristics with designs popular in each region.
Presented alongside DIA’s outstanding collections of Islamic Art and European Decorative Arts, these works of Jewish ceremonial art help tell a broader story of interfaith interaction, shared creativity, and culture around the world.
“Working alongside our collaborating partners at the Jewish Museum to select these pieces has been an incredible journey of discovery and scholarship,” said Judith Dolkart, Detroit Institute of Arts Deputy Director, Art, Education & Programs. “Each artwork tells a unique story—of faith, resilience, craftsmanship, and community—and together we have carefully identified objects that will resonate with our visitors on multiple levels. I am excited for our audiences to experience the beauty, meaning, and history embedded in each piece.”
Guests of Honor: Art of Faith from the Jewish Museum, New York is organized by the Detroit Institute of Arts. The exhibition is generously supported by the William Davidson Foundation.
leave a comment