Printed and Illustrated Aleph-Bet Chart – Frankfurt am Main, ca. 1730 – Rare Chart

Printed and Illustrated Aleph-Bet Chart – Frankfurt am Main, ca. 1730 – Rare Chart

Printed Aleph-Bet chart, with the morning blessings and Psalms, accompanied with fine woodcut illustrations. [Frankfurt am Main? ca. 1730].
Chart for teaching reading to children. The central panel presents the Hebrew letters with various vowels. The texts printed above it include Psalm 23 (to the right) and morning blessings with the verse of Shema (to the left). Seven fine woodcut illustrations surround the leaf. At the top of the leaf, a man and woman in contemporary dress are portrayed, and an illustration of King David praying at dawn with his harp. Four scenes depicting communal life appear beneath the text: lighting the Chanukah lights, a rabbi preaching in the synagogue, a wedding and the Havdalah ceremony. These illustrations appear in the Frankfurt am Main 1729 edition of Sefer HaMinhagim, thus the supposed place and date of printing of this chart.

Rare chart.

43X37.5 cm. Fair condition. Stains. Wear. Marginal open tears, and open tears and defects to center of chart in various places, affecting text, mostly repaired with paper (leaf professionally restored; section of text in upper part of leaf completed in photocopy).

Exhibitions:
1. Jodendom: een boek vol verhalen, by Edward van Voolen. Amsterdam, Museumshop De Nieuwe Kerk, 2011, no. 46.
2. Childhood, Moscow, The Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, 2021.
Provenance: The Gross Family Collection, Tel Aviv, 128.011.019.
A different copy of this chart appeared in the Sotheby's New York catalogue, December 2013, item no. 114.