'Trench Art' - Vase Made from an Artillery Shell. Stamped Bezalel Jerusalem, 1918. Pictures of the Temple Mount and ...

'Trench Art' - Vase Made from an Artillery Shell. Stamped Bezalel Jerusalem, 1918. Pictures of the Temple Mount and Rachel's Tomb.

"They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning shears; nation will not lift sword against nation and warfare will no longer be studied" (Yeshayahu 2:4)

Vase made of artillery shell casing collected from a WWI battlefield. Product of Bezalel Academy of Art, Jerusalem, 1918. The vase was made in commemoration of the liberation of Jerusalem, and is decorated with pictures of holy sites.

The vase is made of brass and copper, in beautiful and especially impressive Damascus-work inlay and engraving. Caption at the circumference of the top: "In commemoration of the liberation of Jerusalem 24 Kislev 1917 (this caption indicates the capture of Jerusalem by the British and its liberation from the Turks). The vase bears two pictures: A picture of the Temple Mount, and a picture of Rachel's Tomb. Figures of animals and grape clusters appear at the bottom of the vase, together with "Bezalel Jerusalem." Private dedication on the bottom of the vase: "Souvenir from the Rose family, Jerusalem."

Trench Art is the production of souvenirs and objects from remains of munitions collected from the battlefield. It is a phenomenon that spread in Europe and the Middle East at the end of WWI. In 1918, Boris Shatz, founder of Bezalel in Jerusalem, initiated production of Zionist souvenirs from munitions casings in order to overcome the economic crisis in the Jewish Yishuv as a result of the war. After Jerusalem was captured from the Ottoman regime by the British, Bezalel began to collect brass artillery shells. They used techniques from the worlds of smithing and Judaica, primarily Damascus work: Decorative technique in which a soft metal (copper or silver) is integrated into a hard metal (brass or bronze). Shatz aspired to create a Hebrew visual art to serve the Hebrew nation, with a Hebrew-EretzYisraeli style - a 'national art' whose goal would be to inspire and strengthen in the purchasers a Zionist affinity for the Land of Israel. These souvenirs were designated to be sold primarily to European Jews who were wealthy and had a Zionist affinity. We will point out anecdotally that using these munitions aroused British suspicion that Bezalel was stockpiling weapons, and they broke into the institution in 1922, wreaking havoc on the place. As a result, Ze'ev Raban designed new doors, which stand to this day at the entrance to the art school. (Refer also to Bezalel, Jerusalem - selection from the Alan Slifka Collection at the Israel Museum, by Chaya Benjamin. Jerusalem, 2008.)

Height: 28 cm. Diameter 8 cm. At the back of the vase, details of the German? factory that produced the shell, and the year it was made, (1914). Very fine condition.