Manuscript with Masterful Decorations on Every Page – Passover Haggadah, with Arvit for Passover, Shir HaShirim and ...

Manuscript with Masterful Decorations on Every Page – Passover Haggadah, with Arvit for Passover, Shir HaShirim and Pirkei Avot, with Judeo-Arabic Translation – Baghdad, 1883 – Particularly Impressive Manuscript

Decorated manuscript, Passover Haggadah and Passover Arvit prayer, with Shir HaShirim and Pirkei Avot with Judeo-Arabic translation, by R. Moshe [son of] Yosef Avraham Somekh. Baghdad, 1883.
Particularly impressive manuscript, masterfully scribed and decorated – over two hundred pages bearing colorful decorations (decorations on every page). Semi-cursive and square Oriental script. Decorated heading and initial word panels (enlarged characters, scribed in color, with floral decorations); LaMenatze'ach Menorahs before the Haggadah and Shir HaShirim.
Each page of text is framed in a border and divided into two columns (usually separated with a floral ornament). In most of the manuscript, the Hebrew text occupies the right column while the left column contains the Judeo-Arabic translation.
The writer signed his name in several places throughout the manuscript within the borders and ornaments. The name was later deleted with black ink, yet can still be discerned in several places, such as in the initial word "Min HaMetzar" (p. 8b): "Moshe Yosef Avraham Somekh"; and at the end of the Passover Haggadah: "I completed it on 26th Adar I, Moshe Yosef Avraham Somekh".
Scribed in the border surrounding the LaMenatze'ach Menorah preceding the Haggadah: "Passover Haggadah, original text and sharh [Judeo-Arabic translation]", "I begin writing the Passover Haggadah, original text and sharh – Judeo-Arabic translation…", "The writer and copyist… [name deleted], in 1883".
Scribed in the headpiece of Shir HaShirim: "I begin writing Shir HaShirim, original text and sharh following the Sephardic rite, here in Baghdad… 1883", "Shir HaShirim, original text and translation, I began on Tuesday, Rosh Chodesh Adar I 1883, in the Beit Midrash of Tzalach Nissim Eliya Aboudi".
Moshe [son of] Yosef Avraham Somekh is presumably the brother of Shaul [son of] Yosef Avraham Somekh, who scribed and decorated another manuscript in this catalog – see previous item.

[112] leaves. 14 cm. Good condition. Stains, including ink stains to a few leaves, slightly affecting text. Name of writer deleted in black ink in several places, affecting text. Tears to several leaves. Original leather binding, with minor defects.

Reference:
• Yohanan Fried and Yoel Rappel (eds.), Siddur Klal Israel, Jerusalem: Mesora Laam, 1991, p. 228.
• Barbara Rush, Passover Splendor: Cherished Objects for the Seder Table. New York, 2004, p. 8.
Provenance: The Gross Family Collection, Tel Aviv, IQ.011.007.