Silver Ashtray of Rebbe Rayatz – With Letter of Authenticity Signed by His Eldest Daughter Rebbetzin Chanah Gurary

Silver Ashtray of Rebbe Rayatz – With Letter of Authenticity Signed by His Eldest Daughter Rebbetzin Chanah Gurary

Silver ashtray of Rebbe Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, the Rayatz of Lubavitch.
Sterling silver, marked on underside: S. Kirk & Son, Sterling. United States, ca. late 1920s (originally made to be used as a compote bowl).
Letter of authenticity enclosed (handwritten note, in English), signed in Hebrew by Rebbetzin Chanah Gurary (1899-1991), eldest daughter of Rebbe Rayatz: "I hereby gift ... the S. Kirk and Son ashtray from my father. I believe there is a photo of my father with this ashtray near him". Dated – 5th November 1989.

Rebbe Rayatz presumably bought the present ashtray during his visit to the United States in 1929-1930, and used it after his return to Europe, in Riga, Latvia, in Warsaw and Otwosk in Poland, during the 1930s. In one of the pictures portraying the Rayatz in Otwosk in 1936, the Rayatz is seen sitting in his room (the yechidot room), deep in thought in front of an open book, holding a cigarette in one hand, with the present ashtray near him on the table (see enclosed picture).
Rebbe Rayatz would smoke extensively, already in his youth and in the lifetime of his father Rebbe Rashab. The Rayatz was known to "smoke without matches" – he would light the first cigarette of a new packet with the last cigarette of the previous packet – without using a new match. During the Rayatz's imprisonment in the Soviet prison in 1927, for lack of paper, he would write Torah novellae on his cigarette stubs.
In the final decade of his life, the Rayatz stopped smoking entirely, due to his ill health, and he also strictly forbade smoking amongst the students of the Tomchei Temimim yeshiva.

Maximal diameter: 16 cm; height: 8.5 cm. Good condition.