RUBENS, Alfred.

A Jewish Iconography [WITH] A Jewish Iconography, Supplementary Volume.

Stock Code

99984

London, Nonpareil, 1981

£750

Alfred Rubens (1903-1998) was Chairman of the Jewish Museum (1958-1983) and an avid collector. In the 1920s, he started to collect prints and drawings of Jewish interest and eventually built up a collection of world importance. When, in 1932, the Jewish Museum was founded in London by Rubens's friend Wilfred S. Samuel, he invited Rubens to join the museum's committee as its expert on prints and drawings. Rubens outlived all other members of that original committee.

The museum started with a major purchase of antique ceremonial objects at Christie's and built up a fine collection, illustrating both the ceremonies of Judaism and the social history of the Jewish community in Britain. Exhibits included silver, textiles and furniture from London's former 18th-century synagogues.

During his lifetime Rubens published several works which were based on his extensive collection. He first published the Anglo-Jewish Portraits (1935), followed by a similar work of wider scope, A

Description

Revised edition, officially promoted in 1981 as a limited edition of 650 copies (of which only 53 were bound thus), however, on the limitation page of this copy, a calligraphic statement says: Four additional sets of sheets were discovered in 1986 and bound up, making a total of 264. This is number 204; 4to, (30 x 22 cm); signed gift inscription by the author to half-title, 2,466 miniature black & white illustrations throughout; original full goatskin gilt by Penine Binding, Halifax; [with] Supplementary Volume, flat signed on the half-title by the Author, some colour and many black & white illustrations; perfect bound with illustrated wrappers; both preserved in the original goatskin solander box, rear upper corner bumped, a little rubbed on extremities, otherwise very good, both volumes the enclosed in a fine state.