Book of Fables

Bernard Picart (also known as Picard) was a French draftsman, engraver, and illustrator best known for his 266 engravings in Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde (Religious Ceremonies and Customs of All the People of the World; 1723–1737). Born in Paris, the son of Etienne Picart, a famous engraver, he settled in Amsterdam in the early eighteenth century and established a printing workshop and engraving school.

Little is known about the life of Moses ben Eliezer Wallich. He hailed from a famous family deeply attached to the community of Worms. His Sefer meshalim (Book of Fables) is, with some variations, a reprint of Ku-bukh (The Book of Cows) printed in Verona in 1595. Distinguishing this print from that made a century before is a letter of approbation from R. Joseph Samuel ben Tsvi of Kraków, then serving as a rabbi in Frankfurt, that this text is to be under copyright. Furthermore, Wallich identifies the thirteenth-century Isaac ibn Sahula’s Meshal ha-kadmoni (The Ancient Parable) and Berakhiah ben Natronai ha-Nakdan’s Mishle shu‘alim (Fox Fables) as the original sources for these fables in his title page. In the first preface, Wallich maintains that his book is also called Ku-bukh.