Printing Plates Used for Printing the Illustrations for The Song of Songs by Ze'ev Raban – Jerusalem

Printing Plates Used for Printing the Illustrations for The Song of Songs by Ze'ev Raban – Jerusalem

Twelve printing plates used for printing some of the illustrations for The Song of Songs by Ze'ev Raban (1890-1970). [Jerusalem]: Lychenheim & Son Press, [1950s?].
The series of illustrations for The Song of Songs was created by Ze'ev Raban between 1911 and 1918, during which period he immigrated from Poland to Palestine and joined the artists of Bezalel. The entire series comprises 26 illustrations; however, some editions featured only part of them. The first edition was published in Berlin in 1923, by "HaSefer". These twelve plates were used for printing one of the later editions. Some are placed in envelopes on which a label of the printing house is glued, sometimes indicating (in German) the color for whose printing the plate was used (the illustrations, printed using the color separation process, required several plates each).
The plates:
1-2. "Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thine eyes are as doves" (1: 15) – two plates, for printing different colors.
3. "I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys" (2:1).
4. "As an apple-tree among the trees of the wood" (2:3).
5. "Hark! my beloved! behold, he cometh" (2:8).
6. "By night on my bed" (3:1).
7. "The watchmen that go about the city found me" (3:3).
8. "I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem" (3:5).
9. "Who is this that cometh up out of the wilderness" (3:6).
10. "Thou art all fair, my love; and there is no spot in thee" (4:7).
11. "I sleep, but my heart waketh" (5:2).
12. "Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah" (6:4).
Enclosed are three additional plates from the printing process of the illustrations for the verses "As an apple-tree among the trees of the wood" and "I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem".
Plates: 19X12 cm on average. Good overall condition. Proof prints enclosed with some of the plates.
Literature: Ze'ev Raban, Hebrew Symbolist (Hebrew), by Bat Sheva Goldman Ida. Tel Aviv-Jerusalem: Tel Aviv Museum of Art and Yad Yitzchak Ben Zvi, 2001.

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"This book – the likes of which the Hebrew reader has truly not seen – made by the Bezalel artist Z. Raban, is worthy of attention. The artist has been gifted not only with a deep and fine feeling that penetrates the depth of this pure poetry – King Solomon's poetry – but he also realized that he should make the illustrations simple and beautiful, understandable and clear to the entire nation […] the artist Z. Raban has been able to create an original work, illustrations for an ancient Hebrew book and to a large extent he succeeded in conveying the ancient Hebrew spirit with simplicity, beauty and tenderness and mainly with the nakedness of the soul, the secret crying of love […] what helped was the painter's great love to the subject and to the beautiful Land of Israel"

Mordechai Narkis, "HaAretz", December 7, 1923, upon the publication of the first edition.