Hanukkah Lamp (Frankfurt am Main)

Johann Adam Boller

1706

Silver candelabrum with eight branches and a central branch with carved figure on top, and decorative beads on each branch.
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This silver Hanukkah lamp is an example of a new type for home use that became popular in the late seventeenth century in Frankfurt am Main. Designed to resemble an ancient menorah, it has a central shaft and curved arms, which are usually decorated with flowers or other decorations. The figure of the biblical heroine Judith is depicted on top, above the holder for the shamash (the candle used to light the others). This Hanukkah lamp is unusual in that it has enamel roundels with scenes from the Bible, featuring Jacob and Rebecca, and other design elements (lions, stags, birds) that may have been meant to represent the name of the family who commissioned it or the names of a couple for whom it may have been intended as a wedding gift.

Credits

Gift of Frieda Schiff Warburg / The Jewish Museum, New York.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 5.

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Page with Hebrew text of decorative border and Star of David located in bottom section, with signatures in the Roman alphabet below.
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Creator Bio

Johann Adam Boller

1679–1731
Johann Adam Boller was one of a family of silversmiths whose workshops in Frankfurt-am-Main produced ritual objects for Frankfurt’s Jewish community. The family included his brothers-in-law, Johann Valentin Schüler, Johann Michael Schüler (b. 1650), and his father-in-law Michael Schüler. Boller and the Schülers were the first to produce a new type of Hanukkah lamp, for home use, that became popular in the Jewish community in Frankfurt in the early eighteenth century.

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