Train-Shaped Besamim Box

Emanuel Eisler

ca. 1880

Filigree container in shape of a train car with four wheels and two smoke stacks. — In Jewish tradition, the end of the Sabbath (or a festival) is marked by the ceremony of Havdalah, which includes the ritual smelling of spices (*besomim*). Many Jewish cultures approached the box containing these spices as an art object, an occasion for beautiful and often playful craftsmanship. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, European Jewish communities witnessed a vogue for playful miniature spice-boxes like this filigree locomotive. This container was created by Emanuel Eisler, a silversmith from Boskovice, who signed his work with his initials, E. E. Almost two hundred examples of silverwork by Eisler and by Josef Ruhmann, another silversmith from Boskovice, from whom Eisler learned his trade as an apprentice, have survived.

Credits

Collection of William Gross.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 7.

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Related Guide

Jewish Visual and Material Culture at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

1880–1918

Increasingly culturally integrated, Jewish fine artists, designers, and photographers produced dazzling works of art and considered cultivating a distinctive national art.

Creator Bio

Emanuel Eisler

1838–1914

Emanuel Eisler was a silversmith and goldsmith, born in Boskovice (in present-day Czech Republic). It is believed that he learned his profession as an apprentice in the workshop of Josef Ruhmann. By 1863 he was residing in Vienna and working as a goldsmith and by 1875 had his own workshop. Most of the 137 Jewish ritual objects attributed to Eisler are spice boxes, but he is also believed to have crafted Hanukkah lamps, alms boxes, Torah shields, and circumcision sets.

Train-Shaped Besamim Box

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