[PRAYER BOOKS].

Set of Machzorim for Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, according to Sefardi Italian rite.

Stock Code

98759

Livorno, Moshe Yehoshua Tobyana; Eliyahu ben Amozeg and friends, 1832

£4,500

Set of Sephardic rite festival prayer books (Machzorim) with exquisite gilt bindings, made for David Sassoon, the treasurer of Baghdad.

David Sassoon (1792-1864) was a Baghdadi Jewish businessman, philanthropist and the first of the European Sassoon dynasty to be referred to as 'Rothschilds of the East' (in fact one of his sons later moved to England, became a Baronet and married into the Rothschild family). David Sassoon was born to a wealthy family of bankers and served as the treasurer of Baghdad between 1817 and 1829; his father had also served as treasurer before him. Later the family fled to Bombay (now Mumbai), following increasing persecution of Baghdad's Jews, where Sassoon became a naturalised British citizen in 1853.

From Bombay Sassoon managed his extensive trade with China. His various business interests included textiles, oil, cotton and other popular goods. Throughout his busy business life Sassoon remained an observant Orthodox Jew.

Description

8vo; all three volumes signed and dated in Hebrew by David Sassoon on title-pages and also include later bookplates in English, added by Sassoon's great grandchild. David Sassoon's name also appears in gilt letters on the spine of Rosh HaShanah volume, text in Hebrew; contemporary morocco bindings with fine, gilt ornamental tooling to spine and boards, embossed endleaves and all edges gilt, slightly rubbed; Rosh HaShana Machzor: one vol., 114 ll.; Yom Kippur Machzor: two vols., 130 ll. & 166 ll.