Torah Finials

These richly decorated Torah finials (rimonim), cast in silver and partly gilt, and adorned with many bells and topped with crowns, were created in London. Of the few surviving seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English Torah finials, some were made by the non-Jewish silversmith William Spackman (active 1703–1726). He followed the style established by Abraham de Oliveyra, a silversmith from Amsterdam, who is credited as the maker of other early English finials. These finials were eventually used in the Great Synagogue of Sydney, Australia, which was established in the early nineteenth century.